Appliances Went In

Today was finally that really productive day I have been looking for. The kitchen is starting to look more and more like the design image (see right sidebar), which is really encouraging.

• Finished installing the cabinets boxes
• Put in the plywood base for the granite counter tops
• Installed the windows, including building a small bump-out to make the sill deeper on the left one.
• Got the appliance in and working (why don't they provide power cords with ovens and dishwashers?). We are really happy with the black finish.

I have been waiting for the weather to break for about a week, but most there has been rain. I decided that I needed to get the new windows in anyway - I need to go back to work tomorrow. The rain basically stopped as I walked out to get the ladder, and did not start again for about 3 hours!

I hoped to get the sink set, but I ran out of time. I am undermounting it beneith the granite tiles, so I need to get it exactly flush with the plywood base. The rim of the composite sink has some variation in its thickness, so I need to individually shim it in about 14 places. I need to figure out a way that this won't take a week to complete.

Appliances

Appliances are the single most expensive items in this remodel (granite would be more, but we are doing it ourselves - more to come on that later).

After doing the research (my wife is the expert here), we settled on higher-end Sears Kenmore. We have had Kenmore in the past, and we were happy with the quality.

On a negative note, the service we received at Sears for the appliances was overall pretty poor. Their sales people were not that well informed on thier merchandise. They didn't seem to be interested in getting us what we really wanted, but making a sale.

After going back and forth, we picked the black ones instead of stainless. We currently have white, but the ceramic cooktop we wanted did not look good in white. Also, black added a some class alsong with the cherry cabinets. We did not go with stainless, since it is a chore to keep clean with kids running around (we have four).

One open item we need to work through: we have a white fridge inset into the wall on the othe rside of the kitchen. We will need to see how the budget goes...

• Slide in range (ID 2246619) - $1440
• Double oven - convetional and microwave (ID 2247859)- $1360
• Dishwasher - (ID2217039) - $464

Total $3264