We're entering the home stretch, and soon we'll be able to cook again! Last week started with finishing all the trim details and hardware on the cabinets. Then it was on to test-fitting the appliances to make sure they would integrate correctly. In the last post there was a big plywood cutout of the planned shape of the granite top for the island. The next step was to test-install the cooktop in order to get the placement down. Here it is, with all its foam bumpers still attached.
I've grown fond of flat electric cooktops, and this is the first time we've had one that's not attached to an oven below. The placement of the cooktop in the middle of the island was inspired by one of my favorite kitchens to cook in, at Beth's aunt Peg's house in Maine. It's going to be great to be able to talk to people sitting at the island while I'm cooking, and not be antisocial, facing a wall in the corner. Another upside of this design is that we can store most of our pots and pans in the cabinet right below the cooktop.
The challenge is venting the cooktop. The silver strip behind it is a pop-up downdraft hood, which will take care of this problem. This necessitates a bit of extra infrastructure on the back side of the island, as shown in the next picture.
This is the test-fit of the pop-up downdraft. You can see a bit of cabinet modification was necessary. The placement of the whole island all needed to work out perfectly for the vent pipe going down to fall exactly between two floor joists, so that the blower motor would mount correctly, tucked up into the basement ceiling. From there, the vent pipe goes along the basement ceiling and out the side of the house.
Looking along the island in the other direction, you can see the glass cabinets mounted in the pass-through to the dining room. I made a mistake in calculating the size of the opening for the pass-though, and nobody else caught it, so we made the opening too tall. What happened is that I had been measuring down from the top of the cabinets in the original plans, and forgotten that when the tray ceiling was being framed in, we found an extra few inches of room from what was on the plans (due to all the false ceilings we found during the demolition phase). At that point, we decided to go with cabinets that were 6 inches taller, and I totally spaced out on how that would affect the size of the pass-through. The end result is that we had to add in a trim board along the top of the glass cabinets to fill in the gap, and it all looks good in the end. Almost like we did it on purpose!
On the other side where it hasn't been covered up yet, you can see all the 2x4s we used to fill in the gap. This side is going to look pretty raw until I get the hutch built (hopefully by the end of the summer!). When it's done, there will be a wood counter reaching through the pass-through, and an arch under the glass cabinets. My goal is that it will all look like a nice piece of built-in furniture from this side when it's done.
Tile was also installed this past week in the bathroom and back hall. The back hall tile was covered up quickly to prevent damage, but the bathroom is almost done and even has plumbing again!
But the MOST exciting part is that the granite countertops just arrived. Here's the same view toward the dining room shown above, this time with granite!
The granite is called Verdi Butterfly, it comes from eastern Brazil, and unlike many things sold as "granite" in the kitchen stores, it's almost a true granite (monzonite if you want to get technical). It's got nice color variations without being too loud, and it looks dynamite next to our cherry-stained cabinets. Being a geologist, I needed real stone in the kitchen. Close up, it's mostly big yellow-green feldspar crystals, which can sometimes look dark green, but glint a golden color in bright light. The closeup below shows lots of white quartz filling in the voids between the feldspars, and a bunch of deep wine-colored garnets. The garnets are especially beautiful in the sunlight, which is something that attracted me to this stone in the first place.
I should be honest, the stone I was most attracted to was an amazing slab of graphic granite I saw at the Granite Exchange, but it was several times more expensive, and I would have had trouble getting out the door in the morning because I would be lost staring at it. The stone we ended up with is a bit more sedate, and that's probably a good thing.
The back of the island is now sealed up with the ductwork inside, and brackets screwed into a couple of interior studs to support the big granite overhang on the back.
With the countertops on and the appliances in (though still wrapped in plastic), it's starting to look like a real kitchen again. We just got water back today, and hopefully tomorrow we'll have electricity. Then it's painting, floor finishing, and we'll be done!
