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.