Last night the architect came by with the second round of revisions. He came over last weekend with Round One – which contain two versions for the kitchen/addition. We disliked one immediately, and the other looked decent. For the next few days I got feedback from people online about the plan, as well as coming up with my own ideas. At one point I got frustrated but Denis calmed me down and said, “Look, he only drew up the plan based on what we told him.” And he was absolutely right.
So I sent him an email with some requested changes, as well as a request for more information on cabinet storage. Turns out our current kitchen has 17 cu ft of upper cabinets, and 18 cu ft of lower cabinets. With the changes I gave him, it changed to 15 cu ft for uppers and 30 cu ft for lowers. A gain of 10 cu ft in cabinet storage space.
When he came over with the updated plan last night, we liked what we saw. A gigantic walk-in pantry (one of Denis’s top requests), a built-in banquette seating area, a desk area, and more counterspace all added up to a really nice looking plan! I had Denis talk through a “typical” meal prep situation and the work triangle is good. If Denis is at the stovetop, and I’m at the sink – I won’t be in his way. If someone needs the microwave, they won’t be in the way. If someone needs something out of the fridge, the only possible way they’d be in the way is if someone is going into or coming out of the walk-in pantry.
But enough of that – want to see the plan?
We made a few minor changes (move the microwave to a less conspicuous location (which will be under-counter on the island) and extend the banquette seating on the outside wall). We’re also switching the dishwasher and sink placement. With those changes specified, we told him to go ahead and begin drawing up the structural plans to give to contractors for bidding purposes.
While he was here he also went up into the attic and confirmed that the trusses up there will not interfere with our attempt to put a 3/4 bathroom and walk-in closet in the guest room. I’m very happy about that!
One thing we know we’ll be replacing in the kitchen is the double wall oven unit. It’s horribly small – when we moved into the house in 2006 we were horrified to discover that NONE of our pans fit in the oven – they were all too big! So for years we’ve been saying that our next kitchen would have bigger ovens. Tonight we ran out to Lowe’s here in town to measure ovens, and confirmed that we want to get 30″ ovens, which results in at least 23″ interior width (a vast improvement over the 18″ interior width we currently have).
Our dishwasher is relatively new, our fridge is only a year old, and our stovetop works fine for our needs. So really it’s just the wall ovens that need an overhaul. I’m also still hopefully we’ll be able to repurpose most of the granite countertops that we installed last year. I also hope to repurpose some of the current kitchen upper cabinets by installing them in the laundry room for additional storage in there.
So now we wait for the structural drawings. Then we’ll begin sending them out to contractors for bids, which will take another 4-5 weeks to receive and review (if we’re lucky. I’ve been told that we might also be waiting 6-8 weeks if the contractors are heavily booked with jobs). But we have our list of contractors to contact ready to go – we’ll be requesting 6 bids in total.
WOOT!