New Construction Update no. 5 Kitchen Granite and Hardwood Floors

The new construction project is near the end. I'm going to jump ahead here on the project since I lost a camera on vacation with pictures from the project on it.
The kitchen cabinets are now installed.

I picked out Martha Stewart Cabinet knobs and drawer pulls. All the appliances are going to be black. They're actually on the porch and going to be installed next.

Here are the choices we had for cabinet door styles. We chose the bead board doors with blank drawers since we already knew we were going to use the the " half moon " drawer pulls. My mom wanted all real wood cabinets which made a difference in some of the pricing. The corner lazy susan unit added in was $1800.

The plumber came and installed all the baseboard heat and tied everything in from the last time he came when he laid out all the plumbing. 

Since we were adding a new zone to our heat , we decided to buy a new boiler/ heating system. We didn't replace what we had for a boiler, we bought a new system that mounts to the wall and it's high efficiency and qualifies for the tax credits. 

We now have a 4 zone system.

The hardwood floors are installed here in Dark Walnut with 2 coats of poly. The floors will get one more finish coat of poly once the appliances are in and the plumber leaves. 

We placed cardboard on all the floors to " plumber " proof  them while he installed the heating.

At the beginning of the project, we picked out the granite for the kitchen. I had 7 samples to pick from.
When we were with the architect and going over the design, we already knew in the beginning what we wanted for colors and cabinets and stuck to the plan which made it easier.  Once you change one thing, everything else changes and it could become overwhelming. If you are planning doing construction, know what you want before you start and try to stick to the plan. You don't want to stress out the contractor and make a million changes. It will slow down the job and the changes  will effect other contractors on the job.

The granite we chose was now not available since we first picked it out months ago at the beginning of construction. This is the picture the granite store sent me with a piece similar to the piece we wanted.
I was not happy. I was also not going to select a piece of granite for the new kitchen through a picture in an email.
Our contractor called the granite store and set it up for me to go up and select a piece I wanted. I could drive 45 minutes west to go see the piece that was similar to what we picked or drive 30 minutes east and pick from 3 other pieces.
I dropped our son at school and headed up to see three pieces of granite.

I got to pick from 3 pieces to stay within the budget of the project.

It was easy to choose the piece since I had to picture the white cabinets and dark walnut floors and black appliances against the slabs.

This piece was the prettiest. It had black , browns , hints of white , beige , gray and specks of  maroon. I've seen a lot of granite when I was shopping for ideas and knew I didn't want the granite with the hints of purple in it. The granite with the specks of purple seemed like it was most popular and too common. I've also seen it in a lot of  new construction while doing real estate. The trend is now light counters with white cabinets in this area of new $800,000 homes.

I insisted on keeping this wall with the ship lap boards. One of our contractors who is very meticulous was not happy with my choice. He wanted to go over it with new ship lap boards and I kept saying no. I wanted to keep the old window also. I was heartbroken when they cut into the wall. They had to set a beam for the roof and it destroyed the wall. I watched this wall throughout the whole project and a new guy they hired pieced the boards that were cut out and nailed them back in. I flipped out when I came home and saw this mess. The new guy could of put the boards back in the same spot like a puzzle that they were cut from.  He didn't.

We headed to the lumber store and I bought some ship lap boards and ripped that whole side of the wall out that weekend. I talked to myself and cursed him  for every board I ripped out. 

The new ship lap boards are not exactly the same as the old original ship lap. Keep that in mind if you are repairing or replacing ship lap.

This is how it came out. I also sanded and distressed the frame of the old window.  I now have a nice base for shabby chic farmhouse decorating for this room. 

The reason we kept this window is for natural light into my dining room on the other side. I wanted to keep the house original even though we were tying in a 1,000 sq, ft. of new construction.

When the plumber finishes up, I will show you how nice the hard wood floors came out.