more kitchen

Crown molding, light rail and working lights have been added (but more to go). Appliances are being delivered on Monday and granite templating same day. Our main staircase should be finished tomorrow. We're moving along.

The schoolhouse fixture in the area outside the pantry

Looking west towards the mudroom door.

This doorway goes into the dining room

My pullout spice drawer. I will use it for oils and spices and keep most of that stuff off the counter tops. I'll probably take out the 2nd from the bottom shelf so my oil bottles will fit.

some of the undercabinet lights have been installed. We will have above cabinet lights - probably just rope lights for now. There's an outlet at the top of each cabinet run.

In the pantry looking into the half bath. The school house fixtures seem a little large to me but I wanted adequate light. The one in the pantry has a 150W bulb and the other one has 100W (but can accept 150W). The items on the top right are the "extra" switches. For the home automation system every light has to have an individual switch. That's 15+ switches just for the kitchen. We don't want that many on the walls so the extras go here in the pantry. For instance, every under counter light can be individually controlled. We will have a button to turn them all on or off not 7 individual switches.

A peak into the kitchen

Here's an in-progress kitchen. The crown molding, light rail and some of the other items will be installed tomorrow. My appliances are suppose to be delivered the end of the week and the granite templated beginning of next week. The cabinets are darker than I remembered - I'm very happy with that. I thought I picked lighter cherry becaue I believed it was going to be a dungeon with all the cabinets at one end and the windows at the other. As you can see it's still pretty bright in there.

This is the view from the dining room (the doorway is framing the picture on each side). I'm a little worried on my white frig - originally it was a cabinet away from my farmhouse sink - but not now. It's closer to my red and stainless stove

From the end of the island looking towards the mudroom and the "sandwich" area - the step down part of the kitchen in front of the stairs to the basement. This is where we're going to store food and items to make the kids lunches. It's also near the frig. The kitchen chandeliers on sitting on the island. The vent is so high because the 160K+ btu stove requires the wood hood to be a minimum 36" above the stove. We have a 1600 CFM vent - John says it's going to suck out all the air in the house. I hope I don't have to run it on high. That pipe over the cabinets will go away - right now it's supplying us gas to our 2nd floor stove. This kids still want to eat.

Let there be light

Here are some of our lighting choices. I was surprised on how difficult this was (well it was difficult when staying on a budget). Most of them I hope look period appropriate. Some of the pictures are a little distorted. This is the 2nd floor bath light. We also have a recessed light in the shower and above the washer and dryer. There is also a light in the fan.
This is the dining room chandelier that we bought for the tenants about 3 years ago. It has 5 lights, not 6. Our kitchen chandelier is based on the shape of the Murray Feiss dining room one. Most of the lights on the 1st floor are based off this piece.


The sitting room (next to the dining room) has the smaller version of the DR light and it's ceiling mounted. I haven't seen it yet but I'm crossing my fingers. In this room there's a medallion.

This is a handcrafted hanging light for our main entry by Northeast Lantern in dark brass with clear seedy glass. If I could afford it I would have bought all my outdoor lights from them. They are beautiful in person.

Two of these lights flank the mudroom entrance. Adequate is all I can say.

Three of these are in the 2nd floor hall. Boy, we will have lots of light. Each one can handle 2 100W bulbs - 600W for the hall! We will probably use lower wattage bulbs.

We have a beautiful foyer light that we bought 3 years ago. It was discontinued so I have no pictures of it. We needed a 2nd understated light in that foyer - so this is it. We'll see how it goes but I have other places for it if I need to move it.

This light is for the TV room. We wanted something that didn't hang too far from the ceiling but has adequate light - 3 100W bulbs. It looks much better than this picture.

I have 2 of these. One is for the mudroom and the other was for the "sandwich" area of the kitchen in front of the basement door. Well, in the 2nd position the upper cabinets will hit this light so we had to find another place for it. We're putting it over the tall table in the billiard room.

A 5 light version of this light is over the island and kitchen table. It carries the same lines as the dining room and sitting room chandelier (but different manufacturers). You can see at least 2 of these at the same time. The colors compliment each other.

I also have 2 Rejuvenation schoolhouse light fixtures - one for the pantry and the other for the area outside the pantry. I also need more lights for the following:

• patio
• sandwich area
• 2 for guest room hallway (top and bottom of stairs)
• bottom of stairs on the 1st floor
• wall sconces for billiard room
• billiard light (probably get it used when we buy the table)
• another light in the TV room near the DVD player and built in bookshelf
• 1st floor full bath (I'm waiting until the other elements are in there to pick a light)
• 2 for the office
• the above lights are "new" light fixtures; I also want to update a few other lights on the 2nd floor.

New mud room

Besides the kitchen I'm really excited about our mudroom. Here's a "BEFORE" picture just when we started construction. Our plans call for bumping out our entrance 6' for the mudroom. We also had the 2nd floor window centered over the door, changed the garage fascade to match the rest of the house and the 2nd pantry window moved to the doorway to the top of the garage (cannot see in the 2nd pic).

In process picture. Pillars are still needed to match the other porch pillars. We think it looks so much better.

More in process pics

Here are more pictures as of 1/30/10. The is the new kitchen addition. Wood floors are going in next week and cabinets the following week. We're moving along.

In the kitchen near the dining room looking towards the pantry entrance and half bath. French door to back patio.

West wall of dining room. The door was moved from the far right to the present position. When they took down the plaster there was a door frame just a few inches to the right of the present door. Our side table wouldn't fit between the door and the built in cabinet so we had them move it a few inches.

Dining room looking east. Doorway on left to kitchen. Not much done here except removed wall paper, widen doorway to kitchen a few inches and put in a transom above the doorway.

Picture taken from sitting room into dining room (and kitchen). The marble fireplace is painted. Another project for me - stripping the paint off of the fireplace.

Sitting room - mainly a staging area now.

Picture taken from the TV room thru the foyer (and hall closet) into sitting room. The main doorway entrance is to the right.

TV room looking into the foyer. This pic was taken standing by our old front door.

TV room taken from the foyer. This is our old front door. The stairs were removed last week. We think they MAY have been the original framed staircase and moved to this position. The staircase frame butting against the wall was painted. They would not have painted it unless it was exposed. This frame may have been the stairs that were originally in the foyer to the 2nd floor. (Or maybe it came from another house?) When converting into a 2 family they reused as much wood, doors, trim, etc. as possible.

We're also installing a gas fireplace insert. The metal tube in the fireplace is from the old heating system. The old heating system has been replaced with a forced hot air and vented outside thru a window in the basement. Also installed central air on the 1st floor. We now have 4 zones in the house.

The future billiard room.

This picture was taken from the 1st floor full bath. The door to the right leads into the foyer and the main entrance. The stairs will be our main stairway to the 2nd floor.

So in the TV room we removed some of the paint from the woodwork. I was hoping for mahogany or black walnut. John was hoping for junk wood. Well, it's pine, oak and other stuff. It's hard to see in these photos but there's 2 or 3 types of wood used on this paneling. It was never meant to be exposed. John's very happy - less work for us - we only have to paint it.

a close up

Here's the tile in the mudroom just layed - no grout yet.

Here's the ungrouted tile in the half bath 4 x 4.

Same tiles as half bath but 6 x 6 ungrouted tile in the 1st floor full bath. The tub will go against the far wall, the toilet next and a pedestal sink closest to the door.

In process pictures

I definitely need more in process pictures. Here's the kitchen with the new addition. A lot more light than I thought. The kitchen table with built in bench will go under the back windows and 1.5 windows on the right.


Kim and Jeremy taking the in-process tour and looking at the kitchen layout on the wall. Kim's due early March. This is the other side of the kitchen. The pipe in the wall will go but we're using it now for our gas stove on the 2nd floor kitchen. The 2 dishwashers and sink is on this wall. To the right thru the doorway is our "sandwich" area where we will make the kids lunch. Past that is our mudroom.

Our future dining room. The wire in the ceiling is for the future speakers. Past the window is a staging area for re-use: doors, trim, etc. It will be our future office.

The sitting room. Pink insulation is in the windows because the windows only have storms here. John and I are reglazing and painting those windows - about 22 6 over 6 windows!

Jeremy looking into Sean's room. Taking the stairs for the last time. Jeremy's head is in Sean's closet. The floor will be extended and we will have a hall linen closet and a walk in closet for Sean.

From the old stairs looking into our future TV room.

Let there be stairs!

First they had to take out the old hallway closet. This was holding up the stairs to the 3rd floor. Only 2 times (so far) the contractors have sworn during the renovations. This was one and the other was trying to get out 150+ year old pipes in the wall - in the latter they had to make extra holes in the 3rd floor to take them out.

The stairs to the 3rd floor were built for a storage attic in the 1910's. Those stairs would be used maybe twice a year. They were minimally built. We finished half the attic with a playroom and bath 5 years ago and use the stairs many times daily. The closet walls supported the stairs. With them gone Mike had to now improve the stair supports dramatically. Things came to a halt while ideas were thrown about and the architect called. I wanted to take a quick shower so they held up some support beams under the stairs and told me to jump the last stair. I was worried that we couldn't access the only bathroom on the 3rd floor and would had to stay at a hotel. They put in some more supports for the night. The next day Mike came up with a plan and they reinforced the stairs. I have been really impressed with Mike and safety. We have a sturctural engineer on this job and Mike provides even more support than suggested. Generally this house is built like a fortress and is not going anywhere.

They then broke threw our floor to install the new stairs this week. Here's Bruno working on it with Mike our contractor. They had to cut through a 10" x 10" main support beam. Now the dust has begun!

They clean up each night but this is the hallway between the living room and our bedroom and only working bathroom on the 3rd floor. We track dust everywhere.

living in a construction zone

We're trying to keep the dust down to a minimum - but it's difficult. Our wine bottles look like they have been aged in the cellar.

We do take the "dust covers" off at night so we can use the the living room.

The 1st morning the kids were trying to watch TV thru the plastic.

Our contractor moved one pantry window to where our door to the roof of the garage was located. That area (roof entrance) was removed so that the 1600 cfm stove vent had space on the side of the house. (Our grill is still on the roof - the contractor forgot to bring it down before the door went away. The will carry it down the ladder.) They also had to center the other pantry window on the street side. Our dryer is located in the kitchen with the water cooler and everything else on shelves in the pantry (moved to the kitchen table). Our washer was in the mess too. Our friends Mike and Liz spent the weekend with us in this disarray.

Here's the old window opening that will be a wall in the guest suite shower (phase II when we have more money).

The temporary wall in our hallway between Sean's room and the bathroom and the rest of the house. It was closed up for most of the time but today it came down. It helped keep dust to a reasonable minimum.

Our dining room. We move the sheets every day so we can eat here. You can't see the kitchen table - it's covered with "stuff".

The office in session. If it's really dusty everything's covered and I'm not on the computer.