At long last the kitchen remodel is finished. It was actually completed in November but it took me a while to take pictures and then to find the time to post them. As you can see, the ugly 70's florescent light box is gone. For now the moldings that surrounded the light box are staying, I am afraid to see what the ceiling looks like underneath. I had to have someone come in and mud, sand and tape the ceiling that is visible and in good light you can tell that more work should have been done. But, it is so much better than it was. The recess will remain because the junction box for the lights needs to be accessible, perhaps someday I will add paint or track lighting.
Taking out the upper cabinets, moving the peninsula to the right opposite side, and getting rid of the bar height counter top made a huge difference. The new counter space in awesome.
There are some very minor measuring issues, but the overall effect is such a huge improvement, nothing else matters. I love having the large drawers for storing almost all of my dishes and cookware in. So easy to see where everything is and so easy to access.
In the end, we had the contractor only tear out and replace the cabinets and counter tops so I had to hire an electrician, plumber, and the get the flooring patched. Because of the condition of the ceiling, I also hired someone to do the touch up and painting. I thought this was going to be really hard, but in the end, it wasn't hard and saved us about $17,000.00 from what we were quoted by the kitchen contractor.We went with Kitchen Plus in Bellevue. The pluses, they really did finish in a week. The cabinet quality is very acceptable for the price and they offer a really good warranty. The designer I worked with gave me some really good design advise, things I definitely would not have thought of on my own.
The minuses, the installer was a bit messy,even dumping some of the scraps and garbage behind the new cabinets. And, if I was ever to do this again, which I will not, I would measure out every section with blue tape and make sure it works. There is about 4 inches of space over the refrigerator that I was hoping would be space for trays to fit vertically. Also, the glass cabinet, that is hanging over the peninsula is a bit too wide.
In the end, I am very happy with the final product. There is a lot of storage space and I love cooking in the new space.
