Kitchen Before and After

I've definitely neglected my blog since returning to work in the engineering field. The kitchen was completed months ago, but I hadn't taken time to get my husband to snap some nice photos. Finally made time for that, in between work & using my days off to painting & reorganizing the other rooms in the house after the re-wiring job. I put together some before & after shots so you can see what a big improvement the new kitchen is.

Happy to see go: wallpapered ceiling, vinyl floor, old hardware on cabinets.

Favorite new additions: recycled glass countertops (vetrazzo), DSC range, bosch dishwasher (nice & quiet), new bar/counter & window valance made with the glass bottle bottoms & LED lights. Eco friendly marmoleum floor and bamboo cabinets with a tall pantry.

Finished Floor Installed

Finished Floor Pattern, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

We finally got my floor design installed (my mid century modern inspired pattern). The marmoleum click was relatively easy to install, a typical floating floor. The most difficult part was accounting for the expansion gap at all the different trim locations. It took a bit of thinking to accomodate those gaps & still keep the design lined up with the entries & cabinets before we started. You can find a few more photos on my flickr photostream.

Sub Floor Repair

  
A few photos from the repair work to strengthen our squeaky floor. 
First we sister-ed every other floor joist with steel joists (had to overlap 2 to make the full span) then we put back the dead men between the joists and finally glued & screwed on the plywood sub floor. There's still another layer of plywood to go down to raise it to the right level to match the rest of the house.

All The Way Down to The Floor Beams

half gone, a photo by BaubCat on Flickr.

Our new floating floor for the kitchen needs to be on a solid and level sub-floor. After walking around & feeling sections give & squeak under his feet, our contractor recommended that we go all the way down to the floor joists & reinforce them. Opening up the floor also make it much easier for the plumber to extend the gas line to the far wall for the new location of the range and a little easier for the electricians to crawl under for that complete house rewire. So all in all, we took up 3 layers of vinyl & original linoleum, one layer of 3" wide pine tongue & groove sub-floor and the final layer of 8" diagonal cross beams. The kitchen looks so much smaller now that everything is gone.
(you can follow the link from this photo to Baubcat's 'Kitchen Renovation' Set on Flickr)

Floor Design for Marmoleum Click

This is a possible floor design for our Marmoluem Click kitchen floor. I've been drawing up dozens of patterns but wasn't particularly thrilled with most of them. We have 5 color samples & planed to combine 3 colors, but are even undecided on which 3. With a layout of the kitchen that isn't really rectangular complicating the flow, it's been a challenge. I've been collecting lots of mid century modern graphics to develop the kitchen design & was looking at a leftover piece of scrapbook paper and was inspired by it's print. As the click  tiles are 12" with square corners I couldn't exactly duplicate the rounded corners of the rectangles, but the basic idea is there. I ended up using 4 colors though. So far it's my favorite, but I may refine it even more.

Floor Plan

Scrapbook Paper

Kitchen Floor Samples have arrived

We ordered some samples of the marmoleum floor for our kitchen. The sample pieces are only the top linoleum layer, but the floor comes in engineered pieces that click together, so they install easily as a floating floor.

I spent the last couple days playing around with ideas for patterns using the 3 bottom colors. I pasted into the drawing the countertop swatch & stretched it over the counters, but the scale is of course too big. I also added the bamboo door swatch off to the side.

So which patterns do you like & dislike?

Demolishing the Kitchen

Demolishing the floor, a photo by b-a-boop on Flickr.

It's a nasty job, one 6" strip at a time I'm removing the ugly vinyl kitchen floor. Underneath is a 12"x12" vinyl or linoleum floor (a bit less ugly, makes me wish I'd pulled up this first one years ago). It will also have to come up & then there is the original linoleum in red & black. Hopefully I can leave that bottom layer as the marmoleum click I wish to install can be put over one layer of existing floor.