By friday, Victor has finished the tile work. He wanted to come back on monday to complete the grout work. Steve has patched up the walls, hooked up the stove and garbage disposal. No faucet or plumbing yet.

On monday, grout work is complete. Kitchen looks wonderful.

Tuesday, Steve completes the plumbing work, installs the faucet and the only thing remaining is the vent hood. By the way, as I had feared, Steve Adams called me on saturday to tell me that he got the wrong information from the distributor and the hood is still “in transit”. He assures me that he is as frustrated by his distributor’s behavior as I am.

By tuesday night, I got back from work, photographed the kitchen from all angles and feel good.

Once again, Victor arrives bright and early at 7:45 this morning. Steve’s estimated completion is by tomorrow, Friday July 13. He thinks he will wait to patch up the ceiling until the vent hood is installed. Rest of the work he thinks will be completed.

Arnold’s appliance has been diligent about keeping me updated on the status of the vent hood. It appears that the distributor is giving them the runaround by continuing to say that the hood is “in transit”, whatever that means. Steve suggests that he will return to complete the job, once the hood arrives. In the meantime, I’ll have to use the stove with the kitchen windows and patio door open for ventilation.

I just got a call from Steve@Arnold’s telling me that the vent hood is arriving this morning and the distributor has guaranteed him. It will be available for pickup on saturday. I’ll believe it when I see the unit.

On Day 10, Steve patched up holes in the wall, cleaned it up to make it ready for the tile work. Steve brings in the tiles and they look fabulous. Since these are slate tiles, again every tile is unique in both shades and designs. They are all polished so they have a smooth and somewhat shiny surface. Only 12″ square tiles are available so he would have to cut each one of them into 6″ squares and arrange them in a brick wall fashion. Steve has a much better idea – why dont we install the 12″ tiles as diamond shaped patterns? He arranged the tiles on the floor and I’m instantly sold.

Flooring is also complete, cabinet toe kicks are installed. The tile guy didn’t show up for the day.

Day 11, the tile guy shows up bright and early at 7:45, ahead of Steve. Steve installed the door leading up to the garage – something that had to wait until we could bring in the stove and flooring had been laid. When I got home that evening, tiles had been installed on one wall and the diamond shaped patterns look great. Other wall has been prepped for work tomorrow. Also tomorrow, the gaps between the tiles will be filled with grout once the tile glue cures overnight.

Monday morning started in anticipation of the countertop. Lotus Designs is scheduled to bring the countertops between 10 and 11AM. Steve once again feverishly sets the area ready. I get a call at work around 11AM that one of the guys who was supposed to help carry the countertop has pulled his ankle so they are expecting a replacement to arrive. Marnie called me and then Shane, twice during the day, giving me updates that they were still waiting for the replacement guy. Finally, Steve calls me saying that Ken let him know the counter tops would arrive by 5PM. I head home around 4:45 and Steve had to take off for the evening. Finally, around 5:30 the countertop arrives with two guys to carry the stuff into the home.

The counter tops are bloody heavy – the larger piece is about 400 lbs. On average, I’m told this stone weighs 20 lbs/sq.ft. I give them a hand as they navigate the piece through the house.

The counter tops are glued to the top of the cabinets with a polyurethane glue. On the side of the sink, they are also glued on the back to the wall. The undermount sink is glued to the edges of the cabinet and to the underside of the countertop with the same polyurethane glue as well. The sink is then pushed up against the countertop by sticking a piece of wood between the cabinet floor and the underside of the sink. It takes 24 hrs for the glue to “cure”.

On the other side, it turns out that the walls are not exactly square so the left side of the countertop is sticking into the stove area by a 1/4 inch. So there is no room to slide in the stove. They had to quickly pry apart the countertop, shave off a 1/4 inch and then bring it back inside – all while the glue is still working! Now the hole is barely enough to slide in the 380 lb stove.

I’m happy I don’t have to fool around with such heavy objects to earn a living.

Countertop:
When we got into this project, we had no idea where to begin. Fortunately, the first contractor who gave us a bid was Kitchen Plus in Bellevue. They asked us to come into their kitchen showroom on a monday evening to discuss the bid, select countertop, flooring and backsplash. That was our first taste for the wide variety from which we had to select our parts. They had available a reasonable selection of granite sample tiles. Previously, I had wanted a dark countertop and my wife wanted a light colored one. One thing about granite is that it is a product of nature so no two pieces are alike. Secondly, on lighter colored granite, the pattern dominates whereas in darker colored granite, the pattern is more subdued. We quickly decided that since our cabinets were light colored, kitchen gets a lot of light and flooring will be light colored, we should pick a dark colored countertop. Dakota Mahogany stood out as the preferred choice. It is a brownish color with dark red and some grey designs. The salesperson at Kitchen Plus showed us backsplashes that will match well Dahoka Mahogany and we decided on Copper Quartz Slate tile for backsplash.

Later, when we visited Pental, we realized that greys dominated in the Dakota Mahogany so we switched to Tan Brown instead. Also, on the backsplash, polished Copper Quartz looked better so we decided to go with that one. We also visited other granite dealers in the neighborhood in Seattle such as Oregon Tile and Marble, Daltile, Michelangelo (avoid this one, if possible).

Appliances:
We first visited Seattle Home Appliance in Bothell since it was very close to our house. Two things we had decided was to install stainless steel appliances and gas stove. We had no clue about the choices until this visit. First question that popped up was cooktop vs. slide-in range. Viking cooktops really caught our eye. We then realized that if we went with this approach, we need to purchase a wall mount oven. Not only are cooktops fairly pricey, stainless steel wall mount ovens are very pricey too. We decided upon a slide-in range.

Other appliance stores we visited are Arnold’s Appliance, Crossroads Appliance, Frederick’s, The Maytag Store, Sears, Albert Lee.

We narrowed down the gas range choices to DCS or one model of Jenn-Air. My wife was picky about selecting a stove that has stainless steel on the top as well (right below the burners). Most other models had black or grey on the top. The price differential was not great and DCS seemed built like a tank. Slide-out oven trays with rollers was a really cool feature. Also, the oven door was very tight so kids cannot easily open the oven, which was another attraction. Finally, that one had 5 burners, with the one in the center with the highest BTU rating.

Wall-mount or downdraft vent?
We quickly eliminated downdraft as an option, due to the nature of our cooking (with lots of vapors) and the fact that downdrafts are not feasible in our available space, if we installed a combination stove/oven unit. Among the wall mount vent hoods, Zephyr and Miele caught our attention. They had the best designs. Miele was very expensive. For the same CFM rating, Zephyr Savona was less than half as expensive and looked very stylish.

We had already decided on an undermount stainless steel sink. Franke turns out to be the best sinks so we picked out a model.

Picking a faucet was another adventure. We went to Keller Supply in Seattle, Home Depot and saw faucets in the other appliance stores listed above. We ended up buying a Kohler faucet from Home Depot – the style with one hole in the countertop, single level control and pull out attachment. If you are remotely thinking about a kitchen or bathroom remodel project, I highly recommend a visit to Keller Supply.

Next, I got bids for the Franke sink, DCS range and Zephyr hood from both Arnold’s appliance and Seattle Home Appliance. Luckily at that time, DCS was offering a $300 mail-in rebate on their range. Seattle Home Appliance quoted a price that included the rebate whereas Arnold’s appliance asked me to mail it in. Even after the rebate, Arnold’s came out more expensive on the stove but cheaper on the other two. So I negtotiated with Arnold’s to beat their competitor’s price, which they did. We ended up ordering all three items from Arnold’s. I recommend Steve Adams, their salesperson, who was patient with us through all the delivery changes that we made and my persistent calling to keep checking on the backordered vent hood.

Flooring:
This was probably the easiest. We had decided on laminate flooring – not too dark, not too light. My wife and I both dislike Oak and Cherry designs, so it had to be some flavor of Maple. When we decided to go with Home Expressions as our contractor, we visited their showroom and selected a couple of choices. Honey Maply was the one we eventually picked for the project.

Friday is the much anticipated day when we expect the countertop to arrive. Steve starts the morning feverishly finishing up flooring so he can move the gas range into its location. He has also removed the door leading into the garage since he needs the entire opening in order to haul in the stove. By the end of the day, flooring is nearly completed. It turns out that they ordered one pack of flooring too short so he needs one more strip of flooring to complete the job. Trim work is yet to be done.

Steve has also installed all the doors to the cabinets. Around 2PM, he finds out that the countertop will not be arriving today after all. Last night, they did an installation that spilled too late so the new ETA for our installation is monday morning. The range was also damn heavy and Steve couldn’t haul it in by himself. So, Steve temporarily places the new door in the rough opening for the weekend so he can install it on monday after getting help hauling in the range.

Steve started on thursday by attempting to cut a hole in the ceiling to run the vent hood’s ducting. As luck would have it, he finds two 2×12 beams running directly in the spot where the vent hood duct should be run. So he stops cutting through them until he can see the dimensions of the vent hood. That way, he can cut through the 2×12 to the right extent. I call up Arnold’s appliance and they tell me the vent hood is “in transit” and should “arrive any day now”. So the ceiling is partly town down until we get further details. In the meantime, Steve starts patching up the other areas of the ceiling that used to house the old light fixtures.

Flooring has also been started today. The utility room flooring is complete and kitchen is partway done. Pantries have been nailed to the wall and fridge is now sliding in and out of its slot very smoothly over the new floor. Even I can move the fridge now.

Last week, after I had picked out a granite slab at OTM, Ken sent me eMail that the fabricator had picked out a slab as well and that I could go see it if I’d like to use that one instead. I didn’t want the hassle, so I instructed Ken to use the slab from OTM.

Yesterday (monday), Ken calls to let me know that OTM has discovered a fissure running along the length of the slab. As a result, they would not sell it to anybody since the slab has a chance of breaking off even before reaching the fabricator’s store. We are back to square one. Pretty much the only choice I have at this point is to see the slab with the fabricator (Lotus Designs). No other yard in Seattle had a slab big enough for our project that I also liked.

I head over to Lotus Designs first thing on tuesday morning and fortunately, the slab they had was wonderful. Lots of browns and not much greys at all. As per schedule, they will be installing the slab on friday morning, around 9AM.

Steve has spent the last couple of days removing the floor and sub floor in both kitchen and utility rooms. On tuesday, another guy came in to pull a gas line from the garage to the kitchen. So the stove is now ready to be installed once Steve lays the flooring in that spot. That will prepare the kitchen for countertop installation.

We are yet to cut a hole for the vent exhaust but that should be done on thursday so debris will not spoil the countertop and flooring.

Today the granite fabricators will be visiting to make a template of the counters. I walked Steve through my specifications on the contours around the sink since I had decided to head to work and not miss another day. We also talk about leaving an inch or so of the counter behind the gas range, to make it look good.

Steve came running into the house urging me to call the appliance store. As it turns out, the hardware to attach the garbage disposal was really necessary for re-use and he let it go with the old sink. Thankfully the appliance store was able to track it down in their yard and retrieve the item. Steve will pick it up on monday.

Around 10 AM, I give instructions for Steve to call me before he heads out for the day, along with how to secure the house and head out. He has torn apart the flooring and subfloor in the kitchen, exposing the base boards, ready to install the new laminate flooring.

That evening, I head back to Home Depot to return one of the cabinet doors that I had extra and exchange another door that was missing a couple of parts. The associate at the returns counter was rather rude. The more I deal with Home Depot, the less I like them. They are a monopoly and this is probably why they can get away with such a poor customer experience – (a) poor tracking of delivery items, (b) can’t give ETAs on special order items, (c) poor at scheduling delivery even after special order items arrive, (d) bad customer experience at the counter. If these guys get their acts together, the stock would be even more valuable.

Day 3 started with Steve removing the remaining counter, dismantling the sink and retaining the garbage disposal. I noticed that the garbage disposal’s attachment hardware was still on the old sink but I figured Steve knew what he was doing. I didn’t point this out to him which you’ll see later turned out to be a mistake. Now that the stove and sink were loose, the appliance guys can haul them away later in the day.

Next, steve leveled and installed the cabinets and their doors. Meanwhile, he tells me that he might get called in the afternoon to unload cabinets at another project and he might take the rest of the day off. That is fine with me since I needed to run a few errands. Finally, he removed the vent hood and the cabinet above the vent. Arnold’s appliance delivered the gas range and sink and hauled away the old stuff. Around noon, Steve left for the day.

I went over to Home Expressions to make the next payment installment, now that the job has started. We talk about my time off from work and Ken suggests that I really do not have to be around the house when Steve is working. Perhaps I can cut short my leave and head back to work starting tomorrow.

That evening, Home Depot calls me to say they have two doors ready to deliver. I can’t imagine how they can run a business like this – they didn’t track the fact that the two doors have already been delivered, along with the kitchen cabinets. I gave a piece of my mind to the guy on the phone and he apologized that the system periodically “gets confused” and drops tracking. I suspect there is a bigger problem with their tracking process. With such a voluminous amount of paperwork for every damn thing, how can they fully track every item? Based on my previous experience with another associate in the doors section who wistfully complained about the amount of paperwork for special orders but then added “who am I to be commenting?”, I knew nothing would get done based on my feedback. Home Depot doesn’t seem like a place where employees make a difference in operational improvements.