So as promised here is a bit of a review on some of the choices we made for our first floor renovation. Lets start with the sink and faucet.

Faucet is clean and simple

The faucet is a HansGrohe Metro: a single lever, high-arc unit that I picked up on sale at the Home Depot for 20% off after I nearly fainted seeing the prices of other models in a specialty store. I figure that this cost us less than half of what some of the mid priced units were going for at the other store.
Pros –

• Looks good with a simple clean design – the control lever can be mounted right or left or in the center like we have
• Feels solid and the unit moves smoothly without sticking
• From what I saw it was a pretty easy installation
• Sprayer option on pullout can be operated with one hand

Cons –

• My biggest beef is that you pull the control lever down to turn it on and left for cold or right for hot. No problem really but seems to be very little fine control – the water goes from a trickle to full blast very quickly. This is something we had to get used to.
• The head for the pull down doesn’t want to retract fully. There is a little magnet which holds the head in but you have to make sure its aligned before it takes hold
• The sprayer requires you to hold down the trigger. There is not a setting where you can turn it on and leave it on.

But given the other benefits I think it’s a good trade-off.

Now the sink. Its a Franke RGX-160 ‘Regatta.’

The sink is a good size for the small kitchen and the bottom grid on the left really helps with cleanup

I wondered why they were so expensive – I mean its just formed stainless steel right? Well in comparing the it which we ended up purchasing from Bathworks in Ajax with products at the depot, I found that the others didn’t have the solid feel of the Franke. It also had nice sound insulating material on the underside which keeps it from sounding “tinny” when you put something in the bottom. We were pretty fortunate that the sales staff at Bathworks helped us by extending the manufacturers sale offer that included the bottom grid and the strainers. I didn’t think that the grid would be useful but we hand wash a lot so its great to put it right on the grid and have it dry. Once again here are the pros;
Pros –

• Looks great!
• Two bowls are different depths so when you put dishes in the deeper one to dry you can hardly see them from the living room. (This was a big consideration to us as you can see that counter run from the living/dining room and we needed it to at least look less cluttered on a day-to-day basis).
• The strainers really seal when you push them down so no water leaks out.
• Solid feel! A real difference between this one and other manufacturers I looked at.
• Sizing fits a 33” base cabinet

Cons –

• None!

So far we are really happy with these two choices. They are used frequently throughout the day and their solid feel (hopefully) means that we will get many years of use out of them.

Next time I will take a look at our Miele dishwasher and you may be surprised by what we’ve found.

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But really the work that Bill the electrician had to do didn’t take that long: putting the trims on the potlights, plates on the outlets and installing the pendant light (which looks great!) with some other bits and pieces.

Pendant picks up the color of the floor and furniture

He even replaced one of our existing outlets to match the Decora style outlets he put in. He said that he didn’t like the look of it because it didn’t match. That just shows the attention to detail in his work!

He had to wait on a few things as he ran out of trims for the pots and wanted to come back after the tile was grouted to put the plates on that wall. So he will be back tomorrow, co-incidentally when the carpet is being installed in the front hall and up the stairs as a runner. I found the carpet installer on Homestars.com and he has a fantastic approval rating. So far he has been extremely responsive and has really helped us through the carpet ordering process.

The backsplash was grouted and looks better than the previous one, although the tiler commented that the tiles are still not truly straight and I can see what he means.

New tile installed last week and grouted

So now it looks like we could really be done for the weekend! (Cross fingers and toes)

Stay tuned – I will devote some time to talking about the various appliances/ fixtures we chose and what I think of them having lived with them on a daily basis!

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On Friday I was supposed to finalize the drawings with my comments, but came down with brutal flu bug and stayed in bed basically for 36 hours. After the weekend [and feeling much better] I am going over to the contractor’s office today to co-ordinate. Just a few small things and confirming that we are all on the same page because its easier to make sure that things are aligned at the drawing stage rather than later on!

I have to also confirm the window size so I can order it from the same people who did the rest of the windows in the house. I am glad I waited to order it now as with a few changes, I think the width of the window changed and once you take possession of the goods, its not like you can return them.

On another note, I secured someone to take away the kitchen! I used this online board called FreeTOrecycle (which is a Yahoo Group) and put all the cabinets, etc (and the dishwasher) up and a fellow contacted me and said that this was exactly what he was looking for and will rent a truck to pick them up when we take them out at the end of the month. Its great because I didn’t want them going to the landfill if someone else could use them.

We also started packing away things from the rest of the main floor, because with the new floor going in, everything has to be out of the way for the floor removal and the new subfloor and 3/4″ hardwood installation. I met with the flooring contractor last week and he said that it would be 3 days to do all the work, which seems pretty quick, but hey lets be optimistic at this point!

So, all that being said, I have a few things to do to get everything kickstarted, but can’t wait to get this project underway!

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Then I got the hood (Zephyr Cyclone 30”) and stuffed that also in the back of the car and, oh yeah, swung by LeeValley to pickup a sampling of handles so we could decide on which ones would suit the cabinets. Lee Valley is a great source for handles and knobs: most are available online, but I wanted to feel what they were like before we chose one. This is the one we are going with (the one marked “A”).

Both boxes were large but I got them downstairs and relatively out of the way. Now a check on what we’ve purchased so far:

• 460 square feet of Hickory Old Mission hardwood flooring from St. Lawrence Hardwood (still in the Brampton Hardwood warehouse, thank goodness!)
• Miele G2170SCVI dishwasher (scratch and dent at MTC, also still there)
• Faucet- Hansgrohe Metro (from Home Depot)
• Franke Regatta RGX160 double bowl sink (from Bathworks; in the basement)
• Zephyr Cyclone 30” Range Hood (The Brick (no really!); in the basement)

The really tricky task will come when we get close to starting; we are moving out while the really messy work is done, but that means we will have to empty the main floor, get rid of stuff we don’t need, find a place to store the stuff we do, and clean up the basement storage area so the plumber and electrician can get in there to do their thing. More to come on this for sure!

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What I mean is that usually you work on the big stuff like construction, budget, kitchen design, budget, etc etc and budget. So starting on the finishes was like putting the cart before the horse, but allowed us to focus in on a few items more or less to get ourselves in sync before tackling some of the bigger items.

At the time we were at a Design Store which has beautiful kitchen faucets and fixtures, but weren’t really ready to lay down serious coin to bring the stuff home. Besides we thought, we have a really small house so the stuff would just take up space until we needed to start the work.

That thought was rapidly superceeded by the need to look for deals on whatever pieces we could purchase on our own when the opportunity came up. So when the flooring (Mission Hickory 4 1/4″ prefinished hardwood from St. Laurence Flooring) went on sale, I ran out to Brampton Hardwood to put down the plastic.

I was a bit worried about storing that much wood in our house (given that it shouldn’t be stored in the basement) but they agreed that if I paid in full they would store the product in their warehouse. Which means that I don’t have to use it as a second dining room table.

As for the dishwasher, same thing applies. And I found a faucet (Hansgrohe Metro) at the Depot on sale for 20% off on a special 4 day promo. [But I brought that home...]

So now back to the sink. While we were at the Design store we saw a really nice sink (sorry, but I am getting excited about shiny stainless things…) Its the Franke RGX160 Regatta and at the time was on sale, but we were not sure if there were other options around. Well I did some research last week and found that the price was great but thought that the sale had expired. Until I phoned Bathworks in Ajax. I dealt with Donna and she got Franke to extend the sale for me! Fanstastic!

So we were going out the East End (well really Oshawa) anyway for a family event, so we popped into the store and put down a deposit. We also saw a bunch of great products if we ever want to do our bathrooms so I imagine a return trip there will happen, hopefully not too far away.

But they still have to order it so when it shows up we will have to bring it back here and store it somewhere…. maybe the dog needs a new water dish?

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Backsplash tile v1.0.

or maybe this one? Backsplash tile v1.1.

The next step is to get high level pricing on the boxes and doors so we can see if we are in the ballpark. Then we can estimate on the cost for the construction elements (electrical, structural, HVAC etc.). I am crossing my fingers!

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