Kitchen cabinets: layout

We discussed the layout for our kitchen cabinet:
- placement of the microwave, oven, warming drawer, and island sink
- sizes of the doors and drawers, approximately
- in the island, which ways the doors open
- special cabinet features such as lazy susans, spice racks, pullout shelves, etc.

The kitchen island will be 3' x 6' with a 1' overhang so people can sit at the island. The layout of the kitchen island cabinets is shown below. The arrows show which way the cabinet doors open.

Kitchen countertop and backsplash

We went to Integrated Resources today to look at granite. They have a warehouse in Brisbane where you can walk around and look at huge slabs of stones: granite, travertine, limestone, marble, etc. We found two that we particularly liked.
Artic Rainbow and Volga Blue

You can't see from the pictures but they both have glints of blue.

There was a beautiful backsplash we saw in The Countertop Store in San Carlos so we drove there to get the info on it. The backslash consists of 2"x2" brown/beige porcelain tiles between 12"x12" tumbled limestone tiles in a soft beige. The porcelain tiles were gorgeous but unfortunately the lady who made them stopped making them. (She had way too many orders and couldn't crank out the handmade custom tiles so she got out of the business.) We might go with a dark blue glass tile instead of the porcelain tile.

Here's a similar backsplash, except it uses smaller limestone tiles.

Feedback & resubmission

We received a letter last week from the city regarding our remodel proposal. The one criteria we failed to pass is the "mass" of the home. Our home looked too massive from the exterior. So our designer added some architectural details to the front of the home to break up the mass and resubmitted our plans.

Hopefully it won't take too long to hear back again...

Windows - finalizing

We met to finalize the type of windows we needed to order for our remodel job. The great thing is that we didn't spend any time picking out a window "look" since we were reusing our existing windows which dictates the style of new windows. Our existing windows look like this:

web page

Since wood windows are pricey, we'll be using vinyl windows with wood on the exterior to match the existing look. Basically, you would choose windows if a) you have that kind of money to blow or b) you want historic style windows.

Vinyl Windows
Cost: inexpensive
Look: cannot imitate historic looks (for older homes)
      cannot be painted or trimmed
Maintenance: none
Reaction to climate: in extreme weather, vinyl can expand and contract

Wood Windows
Cost: expensive
Look: traditional
      can be painted and trimmed
Maintenance: wood frames can crack, split, and the paint can chip
Reaction to climate: susceptible to environmental damage

Feedback - finally!

We got a letter in the mail from the city about our plan submission...finally!

As we had been warned earlier, the plans were not approved. Apparently they never approve the first submission. They needed the resubmission to show
a. a breakdown of square footage by floor,
b. an illustration of guardrails around our basement light wells, (these guardrails have to be "architecturally compatible with the residence")
c. a filled-out "green" checklist show the city which proposed green codes we would be following - thankfully we're doing this remodel before the city has finalized their green building codes!
d. a tree disclosure statement - no idea what this is

Hopefully our second submission will pass and we can get moving with construction. Fingers crossed!

Home, Garden, & Patio Show

We decided to check out this show since we got a free ticket in the mail. We wanted to get ideas and check out a couple of the scheduled seminars. The first seminar was by Doug Fernandez, a Contractor of the Year, who gave a talk about kitchen and bath remodels. He convinced me that we should go with clear shower doors. I wanted either patterned or frosted glass shower doors because I didn't like the maintenance involved with clear doors - squeegee-ing after each use to prevent watermarks. He said that you can get a car glass defogger that'll take care of the high maintenance problem of clear glass doors. And the whole point of the clear glass is to make the bathroom seem larger and you end up cutting out at least 30% of the perceived space with non-clear shower doors.

The second seminar we attended was given by Lee Snijders, host of HGTV's Design on a Dime. We've never seen his show but inexpensive decorating ideas are very appealing! He talked about creating illusions because that's what decorating really is, usually creating the illusion that a space is bigger than it really is. Since he had worked as a Disney Imagineer before, he shared cool Disney facts. :)

Both speakers were excellent which made the trip to this show worthwhile. Between and after the seminars, we browsed the exhibitors. There are some innovative home devices out there such as gutter guards and synthetic lawns. Lots of landscaping and kitchen remodel companies too.

Plan submission

In the last week of March, our designer submitted our remodel plans to the city. A few days later, the city sent out notices to our neighbors (and us) that we were planning a remodel and asked for any comments (i.e., complaints) by April 14. Also, our contractor had to put up a huge sign on our front lawn with drawings of the remodel. This way there's no way our neighbors will miss the fact that we are planning to remodel.

The big hope now is that no one will give the city any feedback. :p