Kitchen Reno: Part 2 - The Best Laid Plans

The scope of our planned kitchen renovation means literally gutting the existing kitchen and building a new one from scratch.  Given that a kitchen cannot be demolished and rebuilt in a day or less (trust me, I checked!), it then follows that, from the day that the wrecking ball meets our current kitchen until the completion of the new one, our home is not going to have a kitchen.  Having arrived at this conclusion, my wife, Judy, and I came to the realization that, before the kitchen renovation begins in earnest, we will have to:

1. Clear out anything that we don't wish to see destroyed along with the old kitchen, including all appliances, dishware, cutlery, food, the cat, etc. 
   
   
2. Find an alternate means of fulfilling all the functions that the old kitchen used to fulfill, including food preparation and storage plus dispensary of drinking water and the washing of used dishes.  We may be increasing our reliance on paper plates, disposable cups and plastic cutlery but a certain amount of dishware reuse will be unavoidable, if only those accoutrements used in food preparation.  I Googled and I Googled but not even Gemini was able to find anything like a disposable paper saucepan.

Future Auxiliary Kitchen

And so it was that we set about planning ways of overcoming these hurdles, one by one.  Our basic approach will be to set up a temporary makeshift kitchen to be used while the new one is under construction.  Fortunately, we have a spare room that we can designate for just such a purpose. It's a bedroom that was recently vacated by our daughter and her husband, who finally moved into a place of their own.  It's largely empty, save for a few odds and ends left behind by the "kids", including a night table that looks like it might make a decent microwave stand.

This room will house the refrigerator, a microwave oven, an air fryer, a slow cooker, a toaster and a Keurig coffee maker, all of which will be moved from the old kitchen to the makeshift one.  Small tables that we happen to have standing around in our basement and large plastic tote containers will be employed as makeshift counters upon which the smaller appliances will be placed.  There will be no functional stove, obviously.  All food preparation will have to be done using the aforementioned list of appliances and/or our (outdoor) gas grille, which is equipped with a side burner for heating pots of water and such.  The renovation is scheduled to start in late September or early October (no firm date yet) so the weather should be amenable to firing up the gas grille for the first little while, anyway.

Once the old kitchen is put out of commission, there will be no tap that dispenses drinkable water until the new kitchen comes online.  We do have running water in the bathroom and laundry room but neither Judy nor I feel very comfortable about drinking the water dispensed by either of those.  Fortunately, we do have an electric water cooler which uses those large 19-litre plastic bottles of spring water that can be purchased at most grocery stores.  This water cooler dispenses both cold and hot water, depending on our beverage needs, and will be moved from the old kitchen to the makeshift one along with the other appliances.

As for cleaning used dishes, that will be done using the laundry tub.

The stove will be either given away or discarded, to be replaced with a new one, and the portable dishwasher will likewise be either given away, sold (for a song) or discarded, to be replaced by a built-in one.  Note:  The cost of these two new appliances is not part of the $50,000 quoted in my last post, so these will increase the project's total price tag, somewhat.

Having established the plan, such as it is, Judy and I tackled the task of clearing out as much of the cabinets as we could. We decided to start with the pantry, having agreed that anything following that could only be easier, not to mention less icky (with the possible exception of the refrigerator) as the rest doesn't involve food storage.  When possible, get the nasty stuff out of the way first, I always say.

We decided to group everything which came out of the pantry (or any other kitchen cabinet for that matter) into the following categories:

1. Need - Anything which we will need to be able to access and use while the new kitchen is under construction (for example, plates, cutlery, drinking glasses, sugar, coffee, bread, etc.)  These items will be left where they are, to be moved to the makeshift kitchen just before the old one is demolished.
   
   
2. Store - Anything which will not be needed while the new kitchen is under construction, but which we plan to keep (for example, a cake plate, empty vases, seldom-used food preparation tools such as the cheese grater, etc.)  These items will be packed into boxes and totes, to be unpacked when the new kitchen is complete.
   
   
3. Discard - Anything which is broken or has expired/gone bad or anything which we simply do not want to keep.  These items will be given away or thrown out.

We started with the top pantry shelf, on which were stored the most seldom-used items, being the hardest to reach.  That contained just two items; a glass cake plate, with cover (that's a "store") and a decorative four-piece serving bowl set with matching tray which had been a gift from someone  and which  we had never used and weren't ever likely to use.  That ended up going to our daughter, who fancied it.  Fortunately, she didn't turn out to be the person who had gifted it to us in the first place or, if she was, she has the best poker face that I've ever seen!

The remaining pantry shelves contained mainly food as well as miscellaneous food storage and preparation items.  There was an awful lot of old/expired food (some never opened) which we had forgotten about and, in some cases, had not even known about, having been purchased and stored in the pantry by the "kids" without our knowledge. 

There were also certain contrivances about whose origins we had no clue, but we were sure we had never purchased.  One example was a deep fryer basket (the mesh kind that one fills with french fries or fish, to be lowered into a vat of frying oil).  This was especially peculiar as we don't have a deep fryer.  Another somewhat esoteric one was a European tool in a box labeled "Eiershalensollbruchstellenverusacher" (a German moniker which roughly translates to "Eggshell predetermined breaking point causer," another example of the German penchant for inventing long monikers for very specific things!) As far as I could make out, this seemed to be a tool for cleanly cracking an eggshell around its entire perimeter at whatever point the user designates.  No messy tapping the egg with a spoon or on the rim of a hard bowl for those fastidious Germans, no sir!  I believe it was a gift from one of my Austrian aunts. Don't tell her, but it went into the "discard" group.

As you can well imagine, emptying all of one's kitchen cabinets and drawers is a tedious and time-consuming task.  By starting early (well before we even had a firm start date for the actual renovation), Judy and I were able to make the job more manageable by doing just a little (usually just one or two shelves) each day. 

When tackling a big project such as this one, it's prudent to allow for additional, unforeseen costs.  For example, one day I pulled into my driveway and glanced up at my roof for no particular reason, only to see a large chunk of my chimney top lying on my roof, next to my chimney, rather than sitting on top of the chimney, where it belonged.  Although this admittedly had nothing directly to do with the kitchen reno, it was nevertheless an expensive (roughly $4,000) repair which couldn't wait (chimneys are kind of a must-have, especially when one's home features not one, but two, natural wood-burning fireplaces, as does ours).  If our home maintenance budget hadn't had a certain amount of flexibility, this incident might have seriously delayed the kitchen reno project but, no, it was "Damn the falling chimney bricks!  Full steam ahead!"

Kitchen Reno: Part 1 - In The Beginning

I live in a bungalow that was built during the 1950s.  A few things have been upgraded and modernized but, for the most part, the house has retained its "rustic fifties charm."  

That assertion holds truer for the kitchen than it does for any other room in the house.  The cabinets are solid wood with a stain or lacquer finish which makes for a cottage-like wood-grain look, complete with knot-holes.  I like the look, but the cabinet surfaces have become scuffed and scratched over the years.  

Some of the cabinet doors are awkwardly hung and one is missing entirely, owing to the fact that they're all mounted using pin-and-socket pivot hinges.  It turns out that one downside to this sort of hinge is that they wear out the wood on which they're mounted over time, causing it to crack and warp, until the hinges are no longer properly aligned or just fall apart altogether.  This comes from having only two mount points supporting each cabinet door, and most of that weight is taken by the lower one.  

Oh, and the cabinet door and drawer handles don't all match.  Several of the originals literally broke from the stress of simply being pulled and pushed once too often for too many years.  It probably didn't help that none of the drawers have roller guides on their sides, so that they open and close by the principle of force over friction only.

The counter tops are a dark gray boomerang Formica pattern, which I discuss in much more detail elsewhere in this blog.

The sink consists of a single basin as opposed to the more popular double-basin sinks.  There is no built-in dishwasher.  We use a portable one, which needs to be rolled into position near the sink and attached to one of the faucets each time that it's used, and then rolled back out of the way again when it's finished washing its load.

The vinyl floor has, unfortunately, not tolerated the weight and stress of the dishwasher traversing it daily and has therefore begun to tear.  I use the word "begun" here in the same context as in the sentence "The universe has begun to expand since the big bang."

So, a kitchen renovation is clearly overdue.  With our grown kids having flown the nest fairly recently and, finding myself with a whole lot of extra time on my hands even more recently, my wife and I have decided that the time has come.

The first order of business was to define the scope of the project.  The cabinets need to be replaced.  It follows, then, that the countertops and backsplashes will also need to be replaced.  The walls are adorned with a garish wallpaper pattern which I can only say seemed like a good idea at the time, but whose novelty factor has now been greatly diminished.  The floor covering is damaged and must therefore also be replaced.   Concerning appliances, our refrigerator is still in decent shape, but our stove, while functional, has become a bit of an eye-sore and must also be replaced.  We want to install a built-in dishwasher to replace the portable one and, since the kitchen doesn't already have a built-in dishwasher, this will mean plumbing work in order to run the necessary water lines.

A project of this scope is clearly beyond my handyman expertise (avid readers may recall that I was barely up to the task of installing a new set of tub doors some years ago) so we set about looking for a contractor.  Friends and family members who have had similar renos done were able to provide us with a list of company names and contacts but, as we began reaching out to some of these, we found a dismaying tendency to specialize.  Some of them replaced cabinets and counter-tops, but didn't do floors, walls, electrical or plumbing work.  Some were able to provide the names of companies whom we could hire to do the work which they themselves didn't do, and some were even willing to subcontract the work out themselves, but I wanted one contractor who could do it all, so that I would have one point of contact to whom I can turn with any questions, suggestions or problems.  Further, because of my lack of handyman expertise and the impairments to my balance, dexterity and strength that come with Parkinson's disease, 

I wanted them to do everything, including demolition and removal of cabinets, counter tops, floor and wall coverings, etc. and installation of new ones, including any finishing, painting, repairs, plumbing, electrical, etc.  I want my only responsibilities to include emptying out the cabinets, drawers and refrigerator, clearing the counter-tops, moving the appliances, large and small, out of the kitchen, making decisions about things like paint colour, floor covering and cabinet and countertop style and opening up my wallet.

We eventually found a contractor by the name of Borman Construction who appeared to meet all of the above requirements.  I reached out to them via their web site and I got a speedy response from the owner, Eric Borman.  He came to our home to see the current state of things for himself and to take some measurements.  He also suggested some changes which we had not considered.  For example, we have a large pantry built into one corner of the kitchen, which we were going to leave alone, but Eric suggested that we build a new one with pull-out shelves and drawers for better access and organization.  (The current pantry has five fixed shelves, so you can imagine how awkward it is to get at anything stored near the back of any of the top shelves!)

After reviewing our requirements, Eric went back to his office and, within a week, sent us a formal quotation for the job.  Our new kitchen is going to cost us about $50,000 including taxes.

... And so begins the adventure!