Kitchen Remodel (Part 2)

Hello everyone and welcome back.

I won't waste your time with pleasantries, let's get to work.

Now that we've starting to assemble the new kitchen, I thought it would be a good time to talk about what we've chosen to do in here. We spent a long while thinking about how to make the layout of this kitchen better for us. We had to keep the corner sink because the windows are in the corner. We determined that we really couldn't change anything. Something we kept coming back to and dwelling on was having a double oven. I also wanted to have an electric oven and a gas range.

We looked into dual fuel ranges, we looked into an oven with a cook-top above, we looked into double ovens. By the time you paid for a cabinet and the oven and cook-top you might as well buy an industrial duel fuel, but I just kept going back to wanting double ovens.

Where do you put double ovens in this kitchen? That was our problem. This is certainly not laid out to be a chef's kitchen. With all our thoughts we went to Lowe's and chatted with one of their kitchen designers. We spent about 2 hours talking to her about our needs and wants for the new kitchen. She said, "Let me play with this, I have some ideas." 

The next day a 3D rendering arrived in Jeffery's email. Here's a link to it if you'd like to witness some neat technology. We decided the double ovens could go there and that we'd make a place for coats and shoes in the garage in order to have this luxury in the kitchen.

This isn't the finalized version of what we ordered, but it will give a good idea of what we've decided to do. I've included some screenshots of the rendering for those who don't want to follow that link.

Now let's talk style designs.

Our wonderful designer chatted with us a bit about what brand we wanted to go with. When we renovated the other kitchen we had purchased Shenandoah brand cabinets. We asked about KraftMaid which had a little bit better build quality and she told us that since our remodel Shenandoah has actually upgraded their cabinets and she's had a lot of issues with KraftMaid. She said it isn't worth the extra cost anymore. We were happy to see that Shenandoah had more range hood cabinet options than KraftMaid, however there is a cabinet we will have to address in the future. The rendering above was done in Kraftmaid, so our Shenandoah choices look slightly different.

So this is the cabinet style we went with. Shenandoah's McKinley in Maple Auburn Glaze. We're hoping it goes well with the hardwood flooring the rest of the downstairs will be sporting (and can be seen in my blog post about the family room.)

https://shenandoahcabinetry.com/collections/kitchen/mckinley

I showed you the tile in the last post but here's the stock image from Floor & Decor's website. The tile is called Majestic Gray.

https://www.flooranddecor.com/white-body-tile/majestic-gray-ceramic-tile-100052638.html

We tried going into a specialty shop for quartz counter tops but they seem to all be carrying the white marble look that we just don't care for in our kitchen. We were impressed enough with the Lowe's install on the first go around that we found something at Lowe's we liked instead. This is Allen + Roth Angel Ash Quartz.

https://www.lowes.com/pd/allen-roth-Angel-Ash-Quartz-Kitchen-Countertop-Sample/3743899

 By adding in the angled glass cabinets we're hoping to bring some more light into the room, but I'm also going with a bright paint color to help lighten the room even more.

https://m.valsparpaint.com/color-chip.php?id=1603&g=1017

Pinterest is absolutely loaded with this color if you want to see it in action. I had a little chuckle to myself because it was sitting next to the color Moose Mousse on the swatch card, the color we had painted the downstairs of the previous house. What can I say? We like beige. But I also thought this would go well with the brown in the family room and the color we're going to paint the dining room. (which actually might shock you when you see it in a later post)

Now let's talk appliances. All we have kept from the kitchen is the fridge we bought when we moved, and the garbage disposal, because they actually put in one of the top of the line ones.

Honestly I'm not sure which appliance I'm most excited about. I think if you asked Jeffery he'd tell you the range-top. But boy has that been an ordeal. We found a Wolf range-top on ebay for an incredible price, but when it arrived it had been beaten up badly by UPS. We had a technician out to look at it and he said it probably isn't serviceable. So we returned it. The return took a long time and a lot of calls to eBay. The seller tried to tell them UPS wouldn't cover it, but UPS was still investigating the claim when we talked to them. Then the seller tried to relist it on eBay after we had shipped it back saying it was fixable. In the end we did get our money back (aside from the $100 we spent on a tech) In the meantime Jeffery had fallen in love with it and so we splurged on a brand new one.

So here we are, the Wolf SRT304.

https://www.subzero-wolf.com/wolf/cooktops-and-rangetops/range-top/30-inch-sealed-burner-rangetop-4-burners

This range-top is so well designed you can melt chocolate on it with its simmer function without setting up a double boiler. So that's neat.

I'm equally as excited for the double oven. I definitely miss having the double oven we had in Bellevue. Most of the more compact double ovens feature a top oven that is convection as well as microwave. Which works well for us because we need a real vent hood over the range-top. While shopping online for one we found this one with built in Wi-fi and some other neat features on sale for the same price as the less equipped ones.

https://www.lg.com/us/cooking-appliances/lg-LWC3063ST-combi-wall-oven

 For the dishwasher we wanted, quiet, powerful, and sleek. Really there's no other choice to us than a Bosch. We went with the 500 Series pocket handle.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Bosch-500-Series-Top-Control-Tall-Tub-Pocket-Handle-Dishwasher-in-Stainless-Steel-with-Stainless-Steel-Tub-44dBA-SHPM65W55N/304644783

We decided on this for a faucet. It's the Delta Trask Touch2O. It's sleek, the hose has magnets to hold it in place, and you can turn it on with a quick tap on the faucet, keeping your dirty hands off. Was the Touch2O a necessary feature? Absolutely not, but we liked the faucet design and really why cheap out on this useful feature when we have a Wi-fi enabled double oven? I do want to know why these fancy faucets still come with the soap dispensers Satan himself designed.

And here's the sink. We debated going with a darker brown for this but ultimately decided on the lighter color, Truffle. It has arrived here at the house and it actually matches the kitchen tile pretty well. Hopefully it goes well with our countertop choice. This is the Blanco Precis.

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Blanco-Precis-Undermount-Granite-Composite-27-in-Single-Bowl-Kitchen-Sink-in-Truffle-522432/301627422

Another feature we decided to add to the kitchen is an instant hot water dispenser. Jeffery has one in his break room at work. We're both tea drinkers so it'll be nice to not have to wait for a kettle to boil or the Keurig to preheat. Here is the faucet we chose for that.

I promise next post will be more exciting. I have a garage full of cabinets now and I can't wait for them to go up. In the meantime, I wanted to fill the blogging void.

As always, thanks for stopping by!
-Em