And the Deconstruction Continues

Were there ever walls here?  Forgot to tell me how much fun this would be.

Just in case it wasn't enough to take down the kitchen - let's pull more down. It had been a drop down ceiling ... 

And let's get down some more ceiling just in case there isn't enough -

Is it Too Late to Change My Mind?

Seems we are past the time where the project can be stopped.  So forward on we go ...

Where did that dishwasher go?

Was there ever an appliance here?

Once our Dining Room - now our Kitchenette

Drumbeat .... Tomorrow morning starts the .... wait for it ...RENOVATION!

Well at least the beginning of the deconstruction of our current kitchen.  We have packed it all up - rummaged through the spices.

Good time to throw out those old spices that have lost color and smell.

And why do we have all that bread in our freezer?

A few pictures of our current living situation -

The blue tarp is what was formerly called the dining room is where we will keep our stove and refrigerator during the renovation.

Overflow boxes stored in our bedroom - That big box in the  photo on the right  is the new sink.  Does everyone have a sink in their bedroom?

Ron's new closet - 

Knock, Knock......Come Back Please........

  Having gone through three frustrating weeks of delays was there any chance we'd cut these guys loose on our bathroom to utility closet conversion?  Oh, forgot to mention the small details.  Only a week after contract signing said contractor called to remind us to select the correct ventless dryer as required by building codes.  Neither as specified in our original design spec or in the contractors Scope of Work.  No way, not ever would this new solution work. Harken to our days in England saddled with ' energy efficient' washers and dryers which require 2-3 times as long to do a half load of wash as we energy-fat Americans have come to expect.  And yes, these efficient machines are twice the price as American equivalents.

 No way, no how.  Having failed to perform simple due diligence and demonstrated sufficient customer contempt in completing our kitchen wiring, there was no possibility of us having this contractor return to tear open walls, redo electrical and plumbing work for the new utility room.

   Cancel a contract?  Are you michuganah!  End of our calls being taken by said contractor. No response and/or non-acceptance of registered letters as well.  On to escalatio'. Richard Nixon where are you?  First stop-- the BBB.  State your case, agree to mediation, await response from contractor.  Cringe, rinse, repeat.  Promises made. Promises broken. Calendar months flip by. News? Not really.

    Next stop, letter to the Florida Consumer Affairs Department (recall, I am retired. What greater joy can I have other than irritating some thieving ganaf!.  Also, complaints filed via web with every professional organization that said contractor displayed on his web site.  On to the State Attorney General's office, another online filing, and the Fla. Dept. or Professional Registration and Licensing.   More weeks pass, months pass.  Finally, a renewed promise of settlement if we'd only state our claims one more time.  As expected another broken agreement, altho this time an investigator was assigned with power to seek engagement of the AG's office, for real this time.

  Magic! A settlement came through. Most unexpectedly.  End of that failed contract experience.  hopes for brighter sailing from here on.  For future reference, the Florida Dept. of Professional Registration and Licensing was the charm.  Quite professional, sympathetic and responsive to the point of over communicating back to us via calls and follow-up letters.

All cleared of that mess, minus cost of one overly expensive day's work by an electrician getting our new microwave and range installed.  And just in time for our annual New Year's Eve party.

So, the minor kitchen work was completed, we're out a bunch of money and our bathroom-to-utility closet conversion is left pending. What to do? What to do?

Hmmm. So, with building codes now clarified the washer/dryer relocation is scrapped. Guess we'll have to live with the washer/dryer remaining behind bifolds in the kitchen. At least the bathtub is not there as well! Thankful for small treasures I guess.

Well, if we can't reclaim kitchen space by moving the washer/dryer out, the next best option might be to build a pantry and move out an equivalent amount of rarely used kitchen stuff. Seems simple, deinstall the sink, cabinet and toilet; replace with floor to ceiling shelves on both sides of the room.  Wire in a new overhead light fixture and maybe, just maybe, a utility sink for the occasional clean-up following each art project with the grandkids.

Voila'.  No sooner spoken than the Architectural Review Board's (i.e., Karen) approval granted.   Diagrams rendered, material lists drawn up, a suitable utility sink identified, and paint allocated from storage.  All set?  'But are you sure you know how to remove the sink? The toilet?  Don't you need some help?'

Lest there be any doubt about the seriousness of this plan a proper project plan was drawn up. Work activities day-by-day, from demolition to a trip to the recycling center, from materials pickup to staining, and finishing up with installation of a bifiold door to replace the standard closet door.  Finally a project I had control of.

Two weeks and a pantry is born, shelves loaded neat and tidy.  Our kitchen now resides with empty shelves aplenty.  All set for now, not another remodeling project in sight!

Note there had been a toilet in that room & a bathroom sink and mirror. How cool is this? (this part typed by Karen)

Slow March to Renovation ... knock knock

Knock, knock. Who's there? The contractor. The contractor who? The contractor who never shows up after taking your money.

Luckily that is not the current contractor we are working with, who will be here on Monday morning to being deconstructing our current kitchen. But, as part of our steps to our new kitchen - we had such an experience. Almost derailed our interest in a new kitchen.

We started our move towards redoing our kitchen shortly after moving into the condo in 2011. First thing we had to do was get rid of the 1982 side by side refrigerator. It was old, had little room, couldn't make ice very well, and generally needed to be replaced. Here is a picture of our new one,a much larger version that needed much more room - so Ron took down a wall to the right of the refrigerator. Our first kitchen renovation.

CURRENT LOOK

Next purchase was an oven, a year later. Again the oven had been there since 1982 - it was a combined oven and microwave. The microwave was no longer working. It could not be replaced with out replacing the oven since they were part of one piece. Still we improvised until nearly all the burners were out on the stove, even though the temperatures in the oven did not regulate according to the temperatures you entered. We were forced to have a different microwave on the counter, and two burners that we bought from a kitchen supply store - the kind used in omelette stations for Sunday brunch.

Enough was enough!

So being who we were - we researched the kind of oven we wanted, and Ron ordered it on line. The price was good, the delivery was great - but alas, they did not install the oven. This was not a major issue for the oven, but the microwave was another issue - that needed installing since the prior one was just part of the oven. We looked around to find someone who could do it for us. And at the same time, as part of our march towards a new kitchen, we wanted to take the washer & dryer out of the kitchen.

We had a half bath off our hallway ... known in England as the cloakroom or water closet. You might visit us for years, and never now it was there. It was camouflaged to look like a closet --- hence the water closet. So we thought - what a good place to put the washer and dryer - and hence have all that room in the kitchen.

Here are a few more pictures. The old oven:

New oven (notice the tile work Ron did behind the oven):

And the march goes on. Ron will take up with the knock knock.

No Purchasing Requisition Needed

Okay, here's your list of 'owner provided materials', and they need to be onsite once construction begins.
  Kitchen Sink....... 1 pcs.     check!   After much searching of reports, online recommendations, articles and reviews, we settled on a Farmers sink with a bowed apron. 36" sounds better than 33", more substantial. Yeah! We'll go with that.  Amazon order placed. Check!
   Kitchen sink faucet ...... 1 pcs., there must be five hundred models at Ferguson's Ft. Lauderdale showroom.  And prices, yikes.  What budget was designed  for this stuff.   No problem, Amazon to the rescue again. best prices, it'll be here in two days. What's the rush?  Oh, free 2-day shipping, were 'Prime'.
    Cabinet Pulls or Knobs.....36 pcs.  Hmm.  That's a religious issue. Lets go check Fairies in North Miami.  Oye!  They have hundreds of options, and Specialized Hardware in Pompano has a totally different array in their collection. How to sort? How to budget?  maybe wooden round knobs would work! Only 98 cent a piece at Home Depot. Nah! Knobs must be inline with 'quality' of countertop (see below) and backspash (see further below).  Okay, not today.  We  have time for this decision. Although it may be the last item on our list.
    Flooring.....267 sq. ft.. Check!   We, at Ron did, fell in love with selections at Lumber Liquidators at first glance.  Look at the selections, textures, and pricing!  Okay, lets be sorta green, go for bamboo.  Not being laminate this stuff truly looks tuff.  Okay.  Now, how to get it home.  Eighteen boxes, at about 60 lbs. per box, that might be two car loads and a whole lot of hauling. Luckily there's a muscular son-in-law happy to come 'assist' on Saturday morning. Did I mention he had access to a really good delivery cart?  Easy-peasy.
   Countertop....43 sq. ft. (or one full slab). Check!  I never new 'green' was acquired at such a premium price.  Must be a lot of work cutting up those oyster shells and recycled glass (see last blog by Karen).  Well, at least that one is not sitting in our bedroom, it was delivered directly to our contractor's countertop guy.  Where?  No clue. but somewhere in Pompano. Maybe the back room at Specialized!
  Backspash.....32 sq. ft.. Check!  Now here's something we can get our hands around easily.  After all, I did tile the wall behind our new stove only six months ago.  Maybe I can do the whole kitchen this time. But what kind of tiles?  This will take a tour of at least five to eight different custom tile shops.  And the array of options and prices are endless.   Oh, we forgot to mention, that anchoring with back-splash behind the new sink will be a custom photo, an image of Biscayne bay at sunset in a 20" x 30" format, mounted on metallic paper and under plexiglass. More on the artist in a later update.  But at least we have a color theme.
    Many showroom visits later, including several revisits, the tiles have been selected. Not to fail to mention the tiles we passed up, six inch frosted glass tiles with etched southwestern Indian motifs.  Only $100 per tile on these. Not likely! But we stretched budget once more on seven boxes of aquamarine and burnt orange glass tiles tiles, every tile unique.  Next I'm working on how to mesh these two tile colors into a relaxing scheme along with a couple of embedded Motawi tiles we've brought back from the Ann Arbor pottery works. A few more design iterations and peace should return to our evenings.
   That's about all that's arrived to-date.  Washer, dryer, dishwasher and wine fridge all on order and pending delivery.  More on those selections later.  Whew!  My part done. Where are the contractors?

Living with Boxes

Waiting ... waiting ... and waiting .... for construction to begin. Boxes all around us. Our home looks temporary again. Pictures off the walls, clothes out of the closet.

Why? I hear you cry. I thought you were talking about the kitchen.

As Ron always says, one project begets another project. As long as we are doing the kitchen floor over, we might as well take it through the hallway. And, won't this look better if we move this wall over here?

I'm sure others have been through this. And, if anyone out there reading this wants to post their own story - just let me know. We have room here for your tales as well.

Did I happen to mention that we picked much of our material by looking at green alternatives?

Consequently the counter will be made with recycled glass. This was after reviewing our many options from cement to granite and all in between --

I was both enamored with both being ecological and stylish. So I decided on a product produced with recycled glass. And, so, my counter will be made of green float glass used in construction, plus oyster shells from the South Carolina Coast and bits of marble from the Historic Georgia Marble Quarry. We got it from a company called Vetrazzo. Here's a picture -

Our Current Kitchen Look

Here is the before pictures - note that the stove, microwave and refrigerator will remain in our new and one day upgraded kitchen. Can you say 1980's?

Depeche Mode

An English electronic music band -

What does that have to do with our kitchen renovation? Everything, or maybe nothing. But we went to a concert last night to see them. It was a sold out concert. And once they came on to play - there was no sitting in this 20,000+ arena - also used by the Panthers, an ice hockey team.

Which takes us to refrigerators and our kitchen renovation. Actually we already purchased our refrigerator and it makes great ice.

The concert was 3 and 1/2 hours. I wasn't actually familiar with the band, but Ron is an avid fan. And like most of the 20k others knew the songs and sang along. I can say they are amazing performers. We didn't sit for the entire time - except the few times I grabbed a few minutes in my seat.

Not sure what I was doing the last 30+ years but it wasn't electronic music.

Now back to the kitchen -

With boxes all over the dining room, clothes on furniture instead of in closets (what does that have to do with kitchens, I hear you cry?), and scrounging pots and pans to cook....

Music cures all .... even electronic.

Yikes! It's here. We've talked about kitchen renovation for so long. Ron and I started talking about it the day we decided to buy our Ann Arbor home in 2008. And we have been talking about it ever since. In between we sold the house in Ann Arbor and moved to a condo in Hollywood Fl.


We've done much of our own stuff, until now. Ron removed ceiling popcorn, walls, installed art tiles in our walls, installed built in closets, and converted a half bath to a pantry closet. And we painted, replaced rugs, and upgraded some appliances. But, up to now, the major work was accomplished by us. By us, I mean that in the royal sense. My ideas and support, and Ron's sweat and hard work.

This time we are turning it over the pros. Deconstruction of our current kitchen is about to happen. Yesterday we were once again knee deep in boxes. Our home looks temporary again - boxes lining the walls in the dining room, and guest room. Pictures off the wall where work will be done - things removed from closets. A new sink sitting in our bedroom, tile and flooring in the guest room.

I think of other renovations I have seen, stories I have heard. Homes in disarray for months, dust, disorganization.

Come back here if you want to see and hear of our tale as we wade our way through the renovation. Pictures will be posted.

We will survive.