Friday, 14 November 2008

Awaiting the cabinets

This blog chronicles my entire kitchen renovation from start to finish. Greentea Design has provided me with their solid wood kitchen cabinets, and I'm taking care of the rest.

If you'd like to be brought up to date, check out the archive in the sidebar for previous posts. I posted recently about more demolition and some of the progress with the walls going back up and plumbing/electrical. Now for some final sketches Greentea created for me and some decisions I've made.


I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my cabinets - and today is the big day! This is about 2 weeks later than initially scheduled, but when you they are coming from the other side of the world, you need to factor in the possibility of issues arising on their way over. The delay in my cabinets was due to the Olympics, as they were held up at a port due to extra security. Totally understandable. Then Greentea contacted me to let me know that my cabinets were arriving a bit earlier than anticipated and if they could be delivered on the 6th of this month. I panicked initially. I knew the construction in my kitchen would not be completed by the 6th and because my house is so small, I would have nowhere to store the cabinets in the meantime. I asked them if it were possible for them to be delivered on the 14th instead, which would give my contractor and myself enough time to complete the space enough to be able to put the cabinets in place. (Turns out I am barely able to make this happen). The guys at Greentea were more than happy to hang on to the cabinets until I was ready to receive them. Unexpected things can happen but they are able to work with their customers to solve issues like the timing of shipments and such. I am so grateful they were accomodating because my house would be in complete chaos otherwise. This has been such an awesome experience dealing with Greentea and I've got to give them props for this. They couldn't be nicer and I'm going to be very proud to have what I know will be a stunning kitchen.

Ok, enough of the warm and fuzzies. Mike, who's a whiz at sketching up kitchens, sent me some final sketches of my kitchen and I was SO excited to see what the finished product will look like. It's one thing to have an idea in your head but to see it with all the finishing touches is amazing. I love technology! Greentea's ability to do sketches is a fabulous feature that is incredibly helpful for their clients, especially those who are new to renovations and designing a kitchen (like me). So without further ado, I'd like to introduce you to what will be my new kitchen!







There are a couple items in the sketches that show some of my final choices to things I was unsure about. One being the dining table. Greentea had initially suggested their narrow Maru dining table:


It's gorgeous wood (reclaimed woods from century-old Korean farmhouses), narrow (which I am having a hard time finding ANY narrow dining tables) and wood match the cabinets beautifully, but because I like to mix up styles, I decided to go with something a little different. But I can't find anything. So my boyfriend did some googling and he thinks we can build a pretty decent table. My contractor is getting a friend of his to cut and plane some planks of wood for us to use. It'll be about 7 feet long and 2.5 feet wide. I'm not sure what to do about the legs but maybe just some simple straight posts would do the trick. Then I want to paint it either white or grey. Things have been so crazy that we haven't started this project yet. Unfortunately I only have 2 hands. Here is an idea of what it will look like:

Nate BerkusZege

I have also decided on a backsplash. Several people suggested using the same material as the countertop and I've decided that I really like the simplicity of this and will keep me from losing my mind trying to chose tiles or something else. It will be about 3 or 4 inches high and run the full length of the base cabinets. When I went to the shop where I got my quartz to ask about this, I was told it wouldn't be a problem, and it would cost about $250 installed. YAY! Sounds good to me! Here are some examples:

DominoDFAO
Lastly, I posted the other day about some purchases I made at the Third World Bazaar here in Ottawa. I think these will be a great start to accessorize the space (my living room as well).