ratty daddy dinkdum: Kitchen is Coming Along!

This post will do a lot of catching up on our remodel. I was taking things slow but, at this point, I keep forgetting where I left off.

To start off with, I thought I would share a few pictures showing the cabinet door style and finish we are using. All three pictures were obtained from http://www.schulercabinetry.com/cabinets.aspx.

The door style is Manhattan Maple.

Here’s a kitchen (not ours) using these cabinets.

Our drawer fronts are solid (they call them slab drawer fronts).

This kitchen (again, not ours) shows the color (white icing) of our cabinets.

I have always wanted white cabinets. I have a somewhat OCD personality, so we’ll see how I like them.

Now here’s our remodeling story. A LOT has happened with our kitchen. We have had some problems with our cabinets. The first set of cabinets came in damaged. Yes, there was some damage on every cabinet. The second set of cabinets had some problems also, and a lot of those had to be replaced. Thank goodness, the Schuler cabinet rep has been wonderful. She has worked and worked with us and has given us lots of freebies for our trouble. Would I buy Schuler cabinets again? Only if I knew that Jennifer would be the one I talked to if there were problems. Some of the problems we encountered were workmanship related; however, most of the problems happened during shipment. Schuler packs their cabinets on pallets using both binding and plastic wrap. They also protect all the edges with heavy-duty cardboard. The major problems occurred when Schuler used a local shipping company. This shipping company, because they don’t have the correct equipment, had to break down the pallets and deliver the boxes individually. That’s when the damage occurred. I am hoping that this shipping company is no longer used. So, fast forward, we now have kitchen cabinets in our kitchen and we are waiting on countertops (photos of this to come in a later post).

Just a side note: We went through Lowe’s to get our kitchen cabinets. We went in there with a kitchen design in hand to talk to a “professional” to see if our design was feasible. I use the term “professional” loosely because I now know that some of Lowe’s kitchen designers are not certified by the NKBA.

I found the following at http://www.diylife.com/2010/03/23/10-free-services-at-lowes-home-improvement-stores/:

“Be forewarned that a kitchen specialist certified by Lowe's (or Home Depot, or any other home improvement store) is not necessarily the most highly trained designer. If you're lucky, you'll run into a CKD (Certified Kitchen Designer), which is someone certified by the prestigious National Kitchen and Bath Association (NKBA). But you might not be so lucky.

According to a poster on Garden Web who used a designer at Lowe's: "Picking a good designer is the key. Be prepared to walk away and come back on a different shift to try someone else. Ask them what their experience is with kitchen design and with the software they will be using." In other words, free design could be worth what you pay for it.”

There are some elements in our kitchen that probably would have been addressed and changed by someone with more experience. They are nothing major, and I can live with them; however, I don’t want this to happen to anyone else. I want everyone reading this to be sure to ask what credentials your kitchen designer has before using them.

So here are the pictures!

Island on its way out. (That’s husband behind it.)

Kitchen sink plumbing had to be moved. Here’s the after with my temporary counter which will eventually hold my temporary sink.

Cased opening into living room part II. We decided the opening needed to be moved over to accommodate the bar. I wanted the bar to end into a wall, not stick out beyond the wall.