Kitchen Interim Update: The Best Laid Plans...

When we added the second story to our house way back in 2002, almost every day was an "Oh, wow" experience. It started with the massive change (the roof disappeared one day), but continued when we saw the downtown view from upstairs, to the extraordinary way the colours worked together, to the cool texture on the bedroom walls (instantly causing us to ignore the poor paint job), to the way the finishing appeared in the bathroom. We still are amazed, and without question, love what we created.

This project is not like that.

The radical differences between the two projects came to a head on Monday as the countertops arrived, and it has continued so far this week through the install of the last cabinets, and we have come to "discover" what has been created. Hence, this "earlier than weekly" update, as we struggle with what to do to save our kitchen.

First the countertops. We were shocked when they arrived. We were expecting an "oh, wow". We got an "oh dear." Take a look:




To both of us, they are a colour disaster. They don't go with the cabinets. They fight with the blue walls. They pick up nothing from the floor. They sure don't go with the red. They are visually blech. They are chocolate; compare that with the post "Kitchen Reno: Progress & Plans" from June -- not anywhere near what we were expecting. It's not their finish; that's dusty but fine. The chocolate pulls no colour from the cabinets or the floor or anything else. They are either non-descript or just plain ugly, depending on your viewpoint.

We could have a long debate about the colour of the cabinets. When I first saw the samples, I said they were black; I was told they are carob chocolate brown, and that colour would come out when there was more of them. To me, they're black, and if I had wanted black, I would have asked for black. Again, compare to the "Kitchen Reno: Progress & Plans" picture, where they are decidedly brown. To me, the black fights with the blue of the walls. KC thinks they work OK.

Then there's the lost cupboard space. Look at this view of the wall that was supposed to be floor to ceiling to floor pantry, with lots of storage space:



Note the cupboards (that were supposed to be full height to maximize the storage space in our relatively small kitchen) will miss the ceiling by 8", and are raised off the floor by 12". Note that there's a 4" gap above the red appliance garages that's lost, and 1" of countertop. That's 25", or over two feet of height, lost through cabinet layout & design.

More wasted space is also created by the appliance garage/pantry space we created by the sink. Here's the unit, fully assembled:



Looks nice, but take a peek at the 6+inches of wasted space inside the top of the garage:



And also look at the swing door in relation to the sink. From here, the door swings down in an arc to close, effectivly making this countertop space useless.



Look, too, at the accordian fold upper cabinet doors.



We did not know they did this, and take note that we loose 3 1/2" of access width because of the accordian fold. European hinges exist to make the doors not be in the way when you open the door; lost all those benefits.



The list continues:
• There was a measurement error that means the drawers next to the dishwasher aren't wide enough to accommodate knives and forks, so we don't know where they go.
• All that lost space in the cupboard height means we can't store our kitchen plates in the upper cabinet (awkwardly high for KC to reach), can't put them in a lower cabinet (awkwardly low for us arthritic folks to bend), so are most likely to live in -- get this -- an appliance garage.
• The obvious place to keep glasses has less than a half a shelf available.

We've been planning this project almost two years, and the only part we're now happy with is the layout -- which we ourselves created on a beach in Maui about 5 years ago, Evereything else is turning up a disappointment. Not what we expected for the amount of money we've put into this job.

Maybe it will all turn out OK in the end, but we wanted "wow."