Kitchen Upgrade - ORC Week 5

The panic sets in!!

First the updates :)

Flooring

The floors are here, acclimated, and getting installed. Suren’s crew is extremely fast with the glue-down installation. And the floors look gorgeous…phew one decision gone right!

Floors 😍

Of course, I was reminded we hadn’t picked out our baseboards. So I did that quickly, and luckily the one I chose was in stock and could be shipped in time for our floor installation to be complete. FMD Distributors were super helpful in this step as well, and were able to source and ship those in a timely way. I chose 5 inch high baseboards which went really well with the overall look of the floors.

Painting

With the floors nearing completion, the painting begins and I’m absolutely thrilled that it all came together timeline wise with Scott’s crew at the Fresh Coats Painting. I loved going over all the details of the different paints we chose for the kids bedrooms and Scott is helping bring my vision to life. He will also be painting our living room fireplace, and I cannot wait!! I loved the fact, that Scott advised against painting our brick fireplace, and instead recommended going with a marble overlay with black veins, to tie the whole theme together. Highly recommend Fresh Coats Painting..check-’em out!!

Except for the kids bedrooms, we have chosen Benjamin Moore’s Simply White for the kitchen and the entire home interior. It’s a crisp white that went really well with the floors, warming it up a bit without the yellow tinge, and complemented very well to the Off-Blackness going on throughout the home.

BM Simply White also jives well with the antique white upper cabinets and warms up the quartzite a little too. Huge win!!

Electrical

On Scott’s recommendation, we requested Duke Electric to help with the recessed lights, switch updates and other electrical matters throughout the house. Duke has been a blessing. He has quickly fit us into his schedule for the entire home lights update, and given us invaluable inputs on the kitchen electrical. We highly recommend Duke!!

When everything’s going so well, why the panic?

I am a core Project Manager at heart, and every project goes through it’s phases of enthusiasm, being perfect, until panic sets in because of some unforeseen issues.

I should have researched this, alas, there’s only so much I can do. I am learning everyday and I surely trust the experts to educate me. Well, some things are destined!!

Remember the layout appointment at the fabricator’s? Aah..the layout.

Countertop Layout

So what’s a layout? Layout is when you and your fabricator look at all the pieces and decide which pieces would go where in the kitchen.

This is fairly easy with quartz, since it’s man made and fairly consistent. However, can be tricky with natural stones, like quartzite or marble. Because Mother Nature loves to paint.

I knew nothing about this, so here’s how I would do it, if I could do it again.

First, take a good look at your kitchen. What are the focal points and what portions would you like absolutely no flaws in? Those are the ones that get laid out first. Also, when at the layout appointment, make sure to have the experts in the house, meaning the boss of the business, so they can bring their experience to the table. There’s a good chance that all your slabs will not be placed next to each other, so you can closely look at the color differences and decide exactly what would go where. Hence, all parties involved present, makes for accountability and thoughtful decisions together. I would also ensure, they understand that they are more accountable for the layout, than you as a consumer are. In my case, I laid this ground rule after the fact. So what really happened?

It was made very clear to me by All Natural Stones, and my fabricators that all 4 slabs are completely identical, and we could not go wrong with it. So I chose the black vein that runs through the slab to be shown off as much as possible on my countertops and waterfall. Now, I really don’t know what went wrong, but cut to the installation day they reported that the focal point of my kitchen, the peninsula, wouldn’t match the rest of the countertop.

They even tried to pin it on me by saying, I did the layout, and that they don’t have any more material. And reading up some Houzz forums, that is a legit answer fabricators give, apparently. Complete panic!!

Anyway, after setting their story straight, they have since taken the responsibility and are working with All Natural to sort the mess out. Apparently, they have been supplied with an additional slab with no cost to us, to rectify the issue. For that, I am thankful to All Natural Stone.

I have finally received a call from the fabricator saying, he personally is going to do the layout and match everything up for me. Fingers crossed.

Since this engagement is not going so well, I have decided to not share the fabricator details. They came highly recommended and have great Yelp reviews too, however, my trust has dwindled away in their attention to detail.

Kitchen Electrical

More panic sets in!! I must say, the countertop fabricators, are a do-it-all business. They also did electrical in the kitchen, the gas line change, amongst other ticket items, since they claim they do it all. To keep things simple, I trusted them with the work, and like I said they came highly recommended, I didn’t think otherwise. However, there have been a ton of electrical issues, a few good electrical codes broken, potential fire hazards, that have cropped up; to an extent, that I am getting all of the work inspected, rectified and then handing that over to one dedicated electrician, Duke!!

Do yourself a favor and hire an electrician from the get go. I hired one for the rest of the house, and in hindsight should have just involved him for the kitchen from the get go. A mistake, that we are rectifying now, and obviously that dents our budget and adds more work for Duke!! Like I said, he is the only electrician I would trust for our home, now.

That’s all the updates for this week!! Fingers crossed for Week 6 :)

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