Half done with kitchen...

[Sam Shank]

It started about a year ago. I ripped out the 12" white tile, and added in the 4" maple flooring. Had to stitch it into the 4" in the adjacent open family room and butt it up to the adjacent wide doorway dining room.

I must have measured right the first time when I laid the floors in the other 2 rooms 3 years ago. Cherry in the living room, and the maple in the family room. Everything lined up perfectly parallel and perpendicular. NICE!

I kept some existing cabinets and refaced them. In hindsight, I wish I would have built new cabinets except for the corner lazy susan. The sink needed a new cabinet to accomodate a larger stone composite sink (I HIGHLY recommend these. VERY NICE.) and I had to shorten another cabinet flanking the dishwasher proportionately.

The fooring is maple, the cabs are cherry. Top coated with 3-4 coats of USL sprayed on, a sealcoat of oxford waterbased shellac, and stained with minwax gel stain color 'antique maple'. I know I know. Stain on cherry. I don't like stains in general, either, but it looks good. I'll snap a shot of the cherry flooring that has aged very nicely sometime in the future.

I used oil rubbed bronze knobs and pulls, and all hinges are Blum, as are the slides (except for on the really narrow drawer next to the dishwasher.) I really really like the blumotion. The slides weren't too bad to retroactively install. Is there anything more annoying than that, though? So many trips up and down the basement steps to make minute adjustments to the slide framing...

Now for the photos... And remember it's only 1/2 done. I still have the uppers to do (I'm off all next week. I know what I'll be doing.) The old cabinets were original to the house, and the house was built in 1985. They are solid oak faces, with kerfs cut into the oak doors. They're old and ugly and had to go.

[Sam Shank]

Oh, and that blue tape line on the floor was the '39th parallel' for my (at the time) 1 year old and 3 year old daughters.

[frank shic]

nice job, sam! how long did it take you to build the raised panel doors? adjusting the drawer slides is a MAJOR pain that ranks up there with fitting the drawer fronts to the drawer box - that's why i've switched to frameless cabinetry! did you install the granite and flooring yourself?

[Sam Shank]

Thanks!

I got the granite from home depot, who just contracts it out. Stone Masters here in Cleveland.

I did the flooring myself. I install and refinish floors as a side job (work in a lab doing research in cystic fibrosis as a regular gig.) Got the flooring from lumber liquidators.

Raised pannel doors took me about a week. I tried to get each step done in 1 day - cut pannels and strips, glue pannels together, mill pannels and rails/styles, glue, sand, stain, and finally finish.

[Sam Shank]

Oh yeah, the in-laws gave us that nice stove. But now it doesn't match the dishwasher or fridge. So, no she says we have to buy a new dishwasher, fridge, and maybe stove. Any ideas here?

I figure I can sell the fridge and stove - they're nice and in good condition. Maybe that will get me 1/2 way to new ones. Maybe I can put the dishwasher in the rental property.