Victorian House Renovation in Bloomingdale, DC
To save some money (the estimates for demolition were all over 1k) Sergey and I plan to do much of the demo work ourselves. Here’s the plan, which will probably take about a month to complete (and since it will take 4 to 6 weeks for french doors to arrive once ordered – the timing works), and should –hopefully–be all done by our 1 June start date:
1) Check to see if there is an old chimney concealed behind kitchen drywall.… Read the rest
Well we’ve finally done it – we made a decision on contractors – the plural here is the key part. The short story is: it’s complicated – we will be working with several different outfits: a builder for structural stuff, an electrician for a heavy up, and a firm to do the rest of the actual kitchen. We have penciled in 1 June as the start date!
The long story is that its too expensive for us to hire one-stop-shop pro.… Read the rest
We are this close to having everything finalized. We have had two contractors come out, two more are on deck.
Already I know we made (or actually repeated) a mistake with contractors. We want at least three, better four, good estimates to compare. Should have lined up 5ive to six names to call right away. Instead we had three-ish (one that came out to do a kitchen estimate awhile ago). So we have received two estimates, waiting for one more, and meanwhile now have two more builders come out this week.… Read the rest
Mirror, mirror on the wall – who is the fairest one of all? My kitchen bench! I got an idea for an awesome, high back, leather tufted kitchen bench awhile ago, which visiting friends in New York last fall. We had stopped into Cafe Ost in Manhattan and that’s when I saw my future kitchen bench:
I couldn’t quite get the image or the idea out of my head for quite sometime, and decided to recreate in the VIB kitchen.… Read the rest
While we keep finalizing our kitchen plans – lots of back and forth still on the details of the layout, we have started the research on french doors. the first time you hear the figure of $3,500 its certainly a shock. but as that turns out, it is actually quite a reasonable figure for an 8 foot tall door, and estimates can get much much higher.
Research was tough at first, as most show rooms carry just a few manufacturer names, and i haven’t really come across any sales people that were keen to share their knowledge on french door essentials.… Read the rest
After two years of thinking and planning for the new kitchen, it finally feels for reals. you know how? well it happens when you go from this:
to this:
and many many of these:
Pretty cool eh’
We have been working with our architect friends who were kind enough to help us way back when we were just preparing to prepare (i.e. putting together our kitchen registry for the wedding).
We have spent probably a total of 40 hours in the last month just on our own (and over several sessions) with IKEA kitchen book getting the cabinet layout just right.… Read the rest
The other day, I was sitting around, looking at this:
and it just really looked awful. and I thought, to hell with waiting to demolish the kitchen, even though that is exactly what i would like to do right now. unfortunately (or fortunately) we have to wait a few more months before we can begin in order to line up all of our financial sources to begin. we are thinking mid march, but that’s a subject for another post.… Read the rest
Ok, so our walls and floors aren’t that great, but do we really need to redo the kitchen? Especially if to do it right we need to do a gut. After all, right when we moved in, we made our kitchen work with some paint, fabric and craigslist purchases. It may not be the most comfortable or pretty, but really it works. for now.
And yet, the odds actually aren’t looking all too good.… Read the rest
That’s a trick question, because the answer is yes. We are planning to do a complete gut of the kitchen – because its necessary (and maybe because we want to, a little bit too).
walls: Currently, the drywall on the right hand side of the kitchen (where all of the appliances are) is actually about 7 inches from the actual brick wall – half a foot! in an urban house! so obviously that’s coming down to make room for valuable floorspace.… Read the rest
Its getting down to six or seven weeks before Sergey and I are done with wedding time suck have a lovely ceremony and celebration with our families and friends. (The house hasn’t been totally neglected this summer – we are tackling a big ‘to do’ project, though its only thanks to Nikita, Sergey’s brother who is staying with us, and hired help – more on that later.)
VIB is getting a pretty sweet deal out of all this anyway.… Read the rest