Kitchen Revamp – Day 5

Ok, I promise I’ll post about our final passion (COOKING)  soon, and not going to bore you with my kitchen cabinetry, etc. I’ll just journal this here to have it for posterity – okay? So, bear with me for a few days.

I managed this weekend to have the 80 year old stove and our fridge (major thing) back into place and start mounting the cabinets. My goal was to have our water running (and draining) by Monday.

Was  very long weekend but managed with some help from my in-laws to mount the wall and base cabinets, have the butcher-block counter-top in place and the sink functional.

The wall wasn’t quite straight so, I had to go through certain tweaks and shimming to align the cabinets to perfection. While Mark (my Father in law – the best Pizzaiolo I know – more on him later) was mounting the rail that will hold the wall cabinets, I started to put together the corner cabinets, and bring them up from the basement. Things looked promising – like resembling a kitchen of some sort. In goes the corner cabinet (nothing like a smiling, aproving wife).

In go the rest of the cabinets and Lazy Susan – why do they call it like that after all??

Steph was ready to fill the wall cabinets as soon as they were into place. Betti, ( Mom in Law) helped with that too. It’s a family business.

The Butcher Block Counter-Top

This was probably the most delicate chapter of all. Had to join the “L” shaped counter tops plus fit a 13″ piece difference between them as the long one (96″) wasn’t long enough to butt the shorter one in the corner.

IKEA makes a beautiful piece of heavy and solid beech butcher-block counter top named “NUMERAR” (don’t you digg their names?). Unfortunately they only come in two sizes 96″ and 43″, and I had to buy an extra 43″ piece just for that joining 13″ piece.

But it was well worth it. I refused to go with IKEA’s joining solution (using a metallic strip that runs across the joint) since I wanted to have a clean surface with no impeding elements in the way. I bake a lot of bread and that little metallic strip would be something annoyingly in the way while I knead.

Sink In!

Had to choose between a porcelain-clad or a stainless-steel sink. While the porcelain looked more classy, reviews pointed out that over the years the gloss wears off leaving a matte surface that will loos its glorious pure white look. So, practicability won over good looks (Gosh – I even sound smart sometimes).

So, that’s how you got closer to the end of reading about my kitchen revamp posts and I got closer to a finished kitchen.

Ciao.