OUR FABULOUS KITCHEN PLANNING EXPERIENCE

Our contractor told us we had better hurry up and order our kitchen cabinets because it would hold things up if they didn’t arrive in time. We started meeting with a fantastic kitchen designer who used the architect’s kitchen plans as a starting point and turned our kitchen into something incredible.

It was an amazing experience that we thoroughly enjoyed. Kathy Schmick at Smoot Lumber is awesome. When we were first planning our house the architects kept implying that we could only afford standard stained wooden cabinets,not the painted ones that I wanted. But now I’m getting high quality (at Doug’s insistence) cabinets by Bertch in a really groovy blue-greenish color. I’m kind of in awe of them, and very excited. The day after I picked them out I bought a copy of Architectural Digest and there was a featured kitchen in exactly the same color. It looked fantastic!

We are getting tons of drawers and lots of counter space and storage. Doug is getting two microwaves, a convection oven and he insisted that we get a double drawer dishwasher. Cyndy is delighted to be getting a dishwasher, period, and also two sinks (one for Doug on the other side of the kitchen). I don’t know why we need such a fantastic kitchen but somehow that is what we are getting.

The cabinets will arrive in May right after the wallboard goes up. The timing should work out perfectly.

The bookcase in the lower left corner is the same color as our cabinets.
Imagine an entire kitchen that color!

The March Meeting and the Spring Tour

The architect's three different versions had three different price categories, and at our meetings in March the builder apologized profusely for the fact that all of three of them them were out of our price range. We'd been waiting since December to receive this wonderful news.

Doug had been planning to add on to the front of the addition after the house was torn down, leaving the planned stairwell where it was. If we didn’t add a section for the music studio in the front, and instead put it in the much smaller stairwell area, and then moved the stairs back into the main section we would be able to afford it, they said. So we said okay, and they quickly came up with three alternate plans. We chose the one we liked the best and the nitty-gritty stage of the planning process began.

MORE TOURING, MORE DELAYS
Our month long break after the winter segment of the tour was now over, and the next stage involved a lot of planning and communication with the architect while we were on the road for two months. We spent nearly all of our free time wandering around various Lowes and Home Depots across the country trying to imagine what kind of countertops, cabinets, toilets, bathtubs, sinks, and lighting we would want to have in our new house. The reason we had to decide on all of these things so soon was so that the builder could continue with his pricing process. These details would significantly affect the final cost.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS
So there were numerous debates about toilets, bathtubs, flooring, kitchen cabinets, and countertops, etc,etc,etc. Here’s an example:

Cyndy initially thought that formica countertops would be perfectly acceptable, since she hadn’t ever had anything else and it was inexpensive and easy to maintain.

Although Doug has also never had anything but formica, he somehow thought that something a little more upscale was in order and he had the impression that Corian was the way to go. It definitely had certain advantages. But Cyndy didn’t like the extremely plasticized look of it and all of the sales reps were acting like Corian was sort of passé anyway. Who knew?

Granite was the same price and looked more natural and was supposedly more durable than Corian. But it also had some maintenance issues. Doug didn’t like the clattery sound that dishes make on granite.

Then Silestone came into the picture. It seems like the most durable option and is probably what we will use, if we can find a pattern that we both actually like.

Cyndy began to notice that all of the speckled granites that are used in hotel bathrooms these days had been starting to remind her of throw up. And most of the Silestone things were either very similar to the vomit patterns, or they had these silly looking sparkles in them, or they were totally boring. She's still not convinced that the countertops need to be fancier than good old tried and true formica.

It has been very difficult to decide on something just for the sake of pricing when so much unattractive stuff has had to be sifted through in our very limited time. It has been that way for toilets, bathtubs, sinks, and medicine cabinets so far - probably because we are so limited as to where we can go to look at things.

Our First Meeting with Our Builder

During the December break we met with the owner of a design-build company. He was very enthusiastic about our project, as we were about him. His company does very high quality work and he had previously been partners with our original architect. We wanted to make the addition, which was to be our new house, sort of in the spirit of the old one. He thought that what we had in mind would definitely be possible with our future budget, so we signed the contract and things got underway.

There was a whole team working on various aspects of the house plans. They had people out measuring the house, there was an architect, and a head carpenter, and all of their various assistants. They were going to design three different floor plans that were related to the sketches we gave them. The prospect of ending up with an even more well-designed floor plan than we had been able to come up with ourselves was thrilling, and to be able to choose from three different versions was amazing. We headed out on the January-February segment of the tour feeling excited and optimistic.