Progress…really, I mean it.

Gosh, it’s been such a long time since my last post. I’m sorry — we’ve been a bit frustrated with the nature of city inspections, etc and sometimes wish we could have just done the entire project without a permit and been done a while ago. But alas, we had made great progress. This is where we stand:

1. Drywall is going up

2. Cabinetmaker is coming on Friday to confirm measurements and hopefully begin install shortly thereafter

3. Basement should be complete late next week — bathroom, flooring, and paint

4. The baby’s room will be started next week and should be finished by the end of the month or early in June

I promise to post pictures as soon as Jamie brings the camera back from DC.

Jonathan

An Update…Inspection (check)

Yeah!!!! — we have great news — at long last we have almost entirely passed rough inspection. What does this mean? Well, I’ll tell you what I know. The contractor is required to get the room into a state where the inspector can come to make sure the plumbing, electrical, gas, etc look ok BEFORE the drywall goes up and it starts looking less like a construction site, and more like a kitchen. This week, the inspector came and liked what he saw. Barring a few more steps we need to take, we passed! This is great great progress — we are thrilled.

Here are some highlights of where we stand today:

This is what the heap of trash looked like BEFORE the vast bulk of it was removed last week.

This is our newly-installed kitchen window. The main kitchen sink will sit directly beneath this window. For those of you that have visited before — it gives a perfect view into the “Smurf” house next door (also known to some as the “Cute House.” What house could be cuter than ours?

This shows a view of the kitchen from the dining room (you can see the beginning of the laundry “closet” framed in towards the back). The old water heater is in full view — that will be removed to make way for a more svelte tankless model which will be housed outside.

This is just a taste. We realized we left some good shots out because I forgot to take pictures of the wall where the rangetop will sit, as well as the wall where the fridge and freezer will sit. Stay tuned for our next post where we will share some details on appliances, countertop, backsplash, etc.

-Jonathan

Demolition Derby…and a much-needed update

I’m so sorry it’s taken us so long to post again — the renovation has completely taken over our house and it’s very frustrating. We both think about it all the time, and are constantly dealing with contractors and various workmen in and out of our house.

Who am I kidding — I love this stuff. LOVE IT. However, I do find it disruptive. Here is where we stand:

• The old kitchen has been demolished and is in a neat pile of rubble on our patio, waiting to be hauled away
• We are waiting for the wall to come down that separates the kitchen and the sunroom (we had to get an engineer for this part and are waiting for it to be finalized)
• Rough plumbing and electrical is going in this week
• Cabinets have been ordered (a huge step!)
• Kitchen is officially off limits to us (which makes laundry an interesting challenge involving exiting the front door with laundry and re-entering through the rear door, truly an adventure).

Hopefully the city inspector will call next week or so (please hope for this) so we can get this project moving along.

I promise we will post photos soon.

-Jonathan

An Overview and Schemes

We first started working with our architect, David Senft, well over a year ago.  Our friend Joyce introduced us to him and after our first meeting he seemed to understand what we were trying to accomplish perfectly. In February 2007, David created these two schemes as a starting point for our discussion. We had already told him that our main objectives for the kitchen were, in no particular order:

• Creating a true breakfast area
• Integrating a covered sunroom into the main part of the house
• Having the kitchen interact more readily with the backyard
• Not adding any square footage
• Lots more counter and cabinet space
• High quality cabinets with all the bells and whistles
• Upgraded appliances and gadgets (Pot filler!)
• Two sink areas to ease food prep (we both enjoy cooking dinner)
• Keeping the laundry room in the back of the house (as opposed to the basement)
• Preserving some semblance of 1940s Moderne in the space

Check out the schemes here: Schemes for Gordin Kitchen

The two schemes are both very good but we ended up going with the first one, Scheme A. The moment I saw it, I not only realized why I was so glad we had hired an architect, but it also hit me that it accomplished pretty much everything I was looking for. Thankfully, Jamie agreed with me. We obviously were constrained by our desire to not add square footage to the house to contain the costs, and I think Scheme A made the absolute best use of the space, using ideas I never would have come up with like moving the doorway to the dining room or relocating windows.

We had specific ideas about the appliances, materials (as many “green” as possible), and, of course, cost. David was able to help us traverse these as we were both very new to a project of this scale and complexity (hey, it’s big for us).

Keep reading, and watch as Scheme A comes to life…

-Jonathan

Welcome to our blog…and our home

Welcome to our home! Many of you who know us, know that we’ve been talking about our renovation ever since we moved into our house in August of 2006. Sure, we’ve done small projects along the way, but we always had our eyes set on a larger project — namely gutting the kitchen and incorporating a sunroom as part of our kitchen (as a breakfast room).

Well, the project is finally taking off. After MONTHS of planning (actually over a year), a weekend of tedious packing and cluttering up every room in our house besides the kitchen — the contractor is ready to start demolition tomorrow. So we figured we’d set the stage first and better acquaint you with the space. Jamie did a great job of shooting the video of the space pointing out some of the space’s deficiencies and malfunctions.

As the process continues, we will be blogging about different materials we will be using, appliances, etc. The next post will give you a better idea of the space via architectural sketches…so stay tuned.

The video below is cut up into 5 short clips to make it easier to digest (and much easier to upload). Each clip is around 30 seconds. Enjoy and let us know if you’d like to see something we haven’t covered.

Clip #1:

Clip #2:

Clip #3:

Clip #4

Clip #5