Week 20: Drywall Complete and Cabinets Assembled
I can hardly believe we have been under construction for 20 weeks. It has been one wild ride, and we are really starting to see what the end product may look like. It was a bit more quiet around the house this week in terms of big construction efforts, but I have a feeling the next month is going to full of updates.
One thing we did get started on was the covered breezeway. Since our house and garage are not joined, we wanted to have a covered awning spanning the distance to give us a bit of coverage in the rain and snow. Plus, it's a really nice design feature and has pulled the whole house together quite nicely.
The awning was constructed to "float" between the house and the garage. We will add a metal roof and paint the underneath white to match the exterior of the house.
Drywall work was also tidied up this week. We had to have the bulk head in the kitchen adjusted to fit perfectly with our cabinets. You can see it in the photo below. The tall pantry cabinets will sit to the left with the refrigerator to the right fitting nicely in the alcove. We purposely built this alcove set back a little bit to allow enough space for a full size refrigerator with the counter depth look.
We also had a bulk head built in the master bath to do something similar as you see in the kitchen, but we ended up not needing it. They tore that out and patched up the drywall. All ready for primer!
While construction activities were pretty much limited to those items mentioned above, Tyler and I have been extremely busy making final decisions and assembling cabinetry. For instance, we made the decision to hold off on finalizing our bedroom closets for the time being. While we could have easily had doors and a simple rod/shelf installed, we decided we would much rather have built-in closet systems in all bedrooms.
This is what the guest room "closets" looks like today.
And this is what we're planning to install (or at least something like this)...
As you can imagine, using systems like these are more expensive than simply adding a rod and some doors, but to be honest, not THAT much more expensive. The tricky part is designing exactly what you want and then picking up, assembling, and installing the entire thing. Therefore, we may wait until after we're already in the house to complete the closets.
We're also planning to do something similar in our master closet, but I would expect us to get this room done first since it would be really convenient to have a place to hang our clothes sooner rather than later. :)
Speaking of designing, picking up, assembling and installing cabinetry, that's exactly what we've been doing in our kitchen and bathrooms. As I've said before, Tyler and I are using IKEA bases and have ordered custom door and drawer fronts. We have designed everything, driven down to Cincinnati (multiple times) to pick everything up, and have been in the process of hauling it from one place to another, and another, and another, AND ANOTHER, and finally assembling it all this weekend - just to haul it to another place yet again.
We're tired.
With a lot of hard work, sweat, and sore muscles, we were able to get all cabinetry to the house and assembled this weekend. It was an exhausting few days, but we are SO glad to have this critical step behind us.
In case anyone is looking to go the IKEA route for their kitchen or bathroom, I would highly recommend it for the cost savings and flexibility. We obviously haven't used any of it yet, but so far I have been very impressed with the quality. Assembly is actually quite simple and straight forward, too. If you have to haul everything a BAJILLION times, however, that part is not easy. Hopefully you wouldn't have to do that, though. :)
While it looks all nice and tidy in the photos above, don't be fooled. We had to move everything to the basement today while the walls get primed this week and then hardwood floors get installed the next week. Once those critical steps are out of the way, we should be able to move everything back upstairs (yay!) and then begin installation.
It is not a process for the faint of heart, but saving thousands of dollars makes it a little less painful - or at least that's what we're trying to tell our sore muscles. I'm not sure Tyler is buying it just yet.... :)
