Cabinets, cabinets and more cabinets....

We went out to the house at the crack of dawn today. It is hard to go around scrutinizing everything with a house completely packed with workers! Arriving at 7:15 this morning was STILL not early enough.... Geronimo and his crew seem to be working in a different time zone.... they were already there, whistling and singing... getting the day started. Bronco was putting some v-groove up to be the backed for the mudroom. I can't wait to see that, we figured if we hung around for 30 minutes, it would have been done, but lots to do today, so we couldn't just stand there all day watching... though it would be much more fun doing that than the sprucing up and little projects we need to do at our current house to get it ready to sell.....

Thursday, Cory, the cabinet guy started setting out the island. They shifted it back and forth, and it seemed right. Friday, the guy came to template for granite, and I looked at the island and about freaked because it was not aligned.... I don't know if all of the crews nudged it and shifted it, or what, but thankfully Cory showed up and I showed him. He agreed, and promised to fix it. This morning something seems not quite right about the alignment, but Nick thinks it is fine. I don't know, I was distracted by the catchy tune Geronimo was singing.

Anyway, here are a couple of shots from this morning....
This first one is of the breakfast area. The banquette was actually supposed to not have drawers (I cut the drawers out to save money), so that is a pleasant surprise! The cabinets flanking the banquette look good, but I expected them to be a little bit wider --- there are refrigerator drawers going in the one on the right, and the cabinet guy was going to make these cabinets a bit wider. He was so pleased with himself that he was able to shrink them a bit to make the banquette bigger and give us a bit more room. It isn't a big deal, but I might have told him to either stick with the scale, or alternatively, I might have put a sconce between the cabinet and the window. I guess I'll put up my Bennington candle sconces there? That will look good I think. Nick and I were figuring this morning that these fridge drawers will be where we keep all of the drinks, it will keep the kids out of the cooking zone, which will be nice, and they won't have to climb all over the counters to reach the glasses. Cory still has to put the little cap on the banquette, and obviously some drawers are missing, etc., but you get the idea...It is hard to see in the picture, but the ceiling is a really cool v-groove barrel vault that follows the line of the window. Once it is all stained, I think It'll look really pretty.
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Here are some pictures of the kitchen and island....They are still working on the walnut top. I cannot wait to see it!

Here is a shot of the hood cabinet --- still trying to determine if the height is a total headbanger for Nick. It is about 6' tall at the arch, so the insert will be right about at the maximum recommended height. I called the manufacturer about raising it above that, and they said several inches would be no problem at all, the cfm's wouldn't change noticeably, especially with our pretty direct shot out the roof venting. She said they test the cfm's in a setting with 2 elbows and 20' runs, and that is how they list them, so cfm's are actually typically a fair amount higher than listed. So, anyway, though Nick is saying the cabinet it fine at this height, we could raise it 2 more inches while it is just the empty box and never have the head banging possibility. On the flip side, the higher it gets, the more you'll see up in to the fan stuff, and the mantel will be getting super high..... Nick says to leave it alone, but he doesn't like to change anything, and it would be very easy now, much harder later, so I want to be sure we are making the right choices!

Here is a shot of the butler's pantry. Think I've shown this one before?