Daily Home Renovation Tips

The day finally arrives. The truck backs into the driveway containing our new kitchen cabinets, drawers and shelves. Yippee!

Bennett enters the house for the second time.

Who is Bennett? Bennett is the VERY nice gentleman providing the actual installation services for the kitchen design firm where Jim works.

We first met Bennett when around 8 weeks prior to the installation date when he came over, and using the plans from Jim:

• Checked the measurements one more time,
• Marked on the walls the:
  • Placement for new wiring lines and electrical outlets
  • Height of the counters
• Marked on the ceiling the:
  • Placement for the two pendant lights
  • Ventilation opening over the stove
• Marked on the unfinished floor the:
  • Placement for the dishwasher and sink plumbing
  • Placement for the electrical lines for the dishwasher and island outlet

We actually met Bennett’s work before that. Prior to committing yourself to a kitchen design firm, you should check their work….in person. We went to a nice lady’s home who had recently had her kitchen remodelled by Jim. She had the same cabinets we had selected so we could see how they actually looked.

Never select a kitchen designer, and perhaps also your primary contractor, before touring a recently completed project and speaking with the customer directly.

After touring this lady’s kitchen and speaking with her, not only were we sold on Jim, but we also insisted that Bennett install our kitchen as well. He is very meticulous and his attention to finishing details is second to none.

It took approximately two days for most of the kitchen cabinetry to be installed, electrical and plumbing lines to be hooked up, dishwasher, stove, microwave, pendant and under-mount lighting all set to go.

We finally even had a kitchen sink for the first time since we moved in!

We had selected a dark brown quartz counter top. From what we could determine, granite counter tops need sealing every 5 years or so….depending on who you talk to. We rejected another type of non-laminate counter top because it tended to scratch. We selected dark brown to complement the dark brown hard wood flooring.

Same with the cabinet drawer and door handles; they selected handles which would not take away the focus from the cabinets or the counter top.

To continue with our 12 part series of articles on our kitchen remodeling experiences, simply select this link to Part 6.