:RENOVATION

Considering I do this for a living, I thought the process of renovating our kitchen would be easy (he says now fondly remembering his earlier naivete). Who knew that designing things for other people, spending their money and having people who actually know how to build things… build them… is so much easier than doing it for yourself. Thankfully I had Majestic Kitchens design help, my wife’s budget consciousness and my brothers building expertise to help save me from myself.

I started where any good great architect would, measuring, drawing and taking general stock of the existing conditions.  You can see our 60 sq. ft. of kitchen in all it’s glory in the plan above. Next I spent hours envisioning and researching all of the amenities and finishes that a well designed kitchen should have. I eventually came to the conclusion that most of my resources were out of our budget range and our kitchen was about 140 sq. ft. too small. So faced with both of those realities we turned to an actual kitchen designer.

With their help and having also come to the conclusion that I wasn’t about to move any plumbing, electrical or gas lines, we started to look at making the most out of the layout as it was. Deeper and taller cabs, pull out drawers for pots and pans, pull out trash, Caesarstone for the window sill and a built-in for the fridge, all in all we ended up almost doubling our storage space.

Next up: Demo!  By far the most fun part of the project.  I think I might be in the wrong profession, who knew busting things apart is so much more fun then putting them together. Although I must admit that half of our old kitchen is still out on our balcony… I will get around to it… really.

Installation took about three weekends (which is amazing because technically you are not supposed to do any work on the weekends in my building). That’s my brother above celebrating that we finally got the right corner cabinet from HANSSEM. The filler piece in the lower left hand corner took me 4 hours to install wrong. It took him about 15 minutes to install right.

So that brings me to the before-and-afters and some important lessons learned:

• It’s okay to rely on people who know what they are doing
• Small ideas can make a big difference in a small space
• Measure the cabinets when they are delivered (you will notice a door is still missing)
• It’s not a bad idea to be on the Condo Board when undertaking a renovation
• I am enjoying my ‘soap’ dispenser thanks to a lively Facebook poll
• Fluorescent Lime is a great color

* Many thanks to my brother Eric for all his hard work, his girlfriend Justina for the brownies and being willing to make a 4 hour drive 6 times in 2 weeks, *Alexis and Todd for letting me disrupt their Sunday morning with front porch circular-saw-ing*  and my wife Jess for her patience and trust that we would end up with a fully functioning kitchen!