LaCocina

We are now out of the horrible world of plastic sheet barriers. We have a reconnected garbage disposal and running water. We have lights up the wazoo. We are moving back into our kitchen and our life.

Will already sent the invitations for the summer solstice celebration (for July 12th), and after the party, we will tile, send drawers and doors back to Adelphi for more easing. I’d expect that we will declare victory when all items are addressed in the punch list, and Richard will then get his final check.

We almost succeeded in having the tile backsplash ready, but Matt had to remove the outlets by the range before we could start. He couldn’t make it on Thursday July 3, because of a policeman burial. Yeah, just like for our wedding. Sanity prevailed and we decided it is not tragic to wait a bit for it, but i do need a functioning kitchen for the party.

Roderick has been here for two days. His team also re painted the dining room (to a less intense blue blue) and Nicole’s room that now will be Julio’s room (upstairs). Will and I finally made decisions for the finish of the bay windows. I was kind of leaning towards white (as the trim) but Will convinced me to go with the original plan that was to try to match the darker color of the island. Well he was right! it looks quite nice. What about the green by the way?

These last two days, have been unpleasant because of the strong odor of the several coats given to the floor. Also living with Robie in the breezeway..

Danger

Will Robinson!!

Most important though, we are happy with our choice of stain. It is less warm than the original we had, but makes a better contrast with the light colored cabinetry.

So our ongoing saga is whether we need to remove the drawer under the range or not. We started some experiments by boiling two pots of water simultaneously, full tilt and for a couple of hours. We placed a thermometer inside the closed drawer. See the instrument.

We measured over 120F after boiling two pots of water for a couple of hours.

We might want to put a peg board or a ‘tunnel’ for the fan to be able to circulate enough cold air. It will go in the ‘punch list’. By the way, Richard has been quite outstanding in addressing all the little issues.

We sent him the list and he agreed to everything. The next mail had a request to have some of his prospective clients see the kitchen. We said yes. I think his technique is to finish on a good note. Works for us.

Finally we don’t ahve to see those ugly gaps.

We were supposed to have the countertops installed on Saturday, but Friday afternoon, Richard called us to tell us that the delivery truck from the stone supplier to the stone cutter broke on route. I was really looking forward to seeing the installation, that now will occur on Tuesday. To boot, I’ll be in a work related trip Monday to Wednesday.
We used the time that morning of Saturday to buy a flush mounted light for in front of the bay windows and to visit Richard in his lair. The main discussion was about the drawers and roll outs under the induction stove. It turns out that the installation instructions require 12″ of clearance under the stove and shortened top roll out. Al, the guy at Bray and Scarff that sold us the stove, said that they don’t have any ventilation issues with a setup like RIchard designed. BUt of course, if something happened then the warranty would be void. We decided to continue on course, and do some experimentation on heat output and ventilation.

Richard will see about restoring the roll outs under the peninsula that were missed by Adelphi. On the same vein, I have asked Richard to come and see how it looks doubtful that our doors edges were ‘eased’.

Will also removed a wasp nest on the siding, discovered while Jim was working the new vent for the extractor.

Today we discovered that the peninsula does not have the two roll out shelves that were in the plan. The peninsula is clipped in the corner so we can understand that it would have been dicey to install them. But no one said a word. Will (now his time to be the bad cop) sent a message asking about this to Richard.