Kitchen is almost ready

... minus connecting the appliances, electrical work, and painting. These are small things though. The biggest items -- the tile work, countertops, and kitchen cabinets are already installed.

Here are some new pictures of the kitchen.


The tilers put the blue tape across. It looks like I had to inaugurate the kitchen by cutting the ribbon. :)

Kitchen Cabinets installed and bathroom almost done

Now that we are at the start of week 5, a lot has been done this past week:

• Installed new kitchen cabinets


• Finished the drywall and drywall sanding


• Installed wooden countertop to hold the actual countertop

Here are pictures of the results so far.
Picture below: Bathroom done (except for painting, closing the electrical outlets, and fixing the bathtub slow drain)


Kitchen pictures that show the new cabinets







Kitchen Cabinet Pick Up
I had to coordinate the delivery of the kitchen cabinets since the store doesn't deliver them. I had movers scheduled to pick them between 3 and 4pm last Monday. I worked from home last Monday to be able to be free during this time. Unfortunately, the movers were late and informed me they were arriving at 5pm, which wasn't going to work out because the store closed at 5pm. Thankfully, the store sales clerk accepted to wait longer. They arrived eventually at 5:30pm and loaded the truck! Phew! It was quite stressful.

I Moved In
Yes, I moved into the apartment, err.. construction site. :) I spent the whole day today cleaning the bathroom, sweeping the bathroom and bedroom floors to remove dust. Then I painted the laundry room and the new sheetrock above the bathroom sink with a coat of primer. I taped around all trims in preparation for painting all bathroom walls with regular paint. This will probably happen sometime this upcoming week, during one of my free evenings.

Start of Week 4

I stopped by the condo today to take some new pictures and measurements in the bathroom. I was very happy to see how the tiles in the bathroom turned out. The tiles look beautiful. It is excellent work! The selection of the height of the liners is also ideal. The tile installers did a great job.

Here are some pictures of the tiles in the bathroom.


Finished tile work in bathroom.


I asked for the soap plate later, after the tile work was in progress. I was very pleased that the tile installer provided this marble plate on his own for no additional cost. It looks nice!


This is the area above the vanity where the mirror should go.


Toilet corner area.

Other than the tile work, sheetrock has been installed on all opened walls and insulation has been placed in kitchen walls and ceiling. They are now in the process of sealing the seams and holes of the walls with mud.


Guys have higher heels than women. Just kidding. :) These heels are certainly handy for this job!


Kitchen with sheetrock


The kitchen back walls


Laundry room in bathroom

Shower door or shower curtain?

I'm deciding whether to install a shower door for the bathtub/shower area or just shower curtains. Here are some pictures from Lowes:

Kohler Frameless Tubdoor

Here is how a shower curtain would look like: Sage shower curtain

Pros and cons of a shower curtain
The curtain provides privacy so that guests won't be able to look into the tub area and see water drops, bottles of shampoo, etc. This is important I think especially because the tub area faces the door, so it's the first thing people see when entering the bathroom. Also, it is right next to the vanity, so people can easily peek into it when standing in front of the vanity. On the other hand, the shower curtain will make the room a bit darker and water can be easily stuck between the liner and the curtain and has a harder time to dry. This can create mold over the years. I noticed that in California tubs have shower doors. I rarely see shower curtains, which are more used in WA state. Could it be because of the warmer and more humid weather in California that warrants shower doors?

I haven't gone to the condo yet this morning, but will go soon when I am on my way to Lowes. I have to take some measurements in the bathroom before I go shopping. I have to get the vanity today, in addition to the light fixture, and maybe a shower door if I make up my mind. I am hoping I can find a suitable vanity because I can order only from the ones that are in stock. There is no time to wait 3 weeks for a special order. The vanity will come with a countertop and sink already. I will probably only need to buy the faucet separately. And don't worry, I won't be transporting all these myself. My contractor accepted to pick them up from Lowes. So when I purchase them, I have to tell them to keep them on the side for pickup.

Kitchen Cabinets

I went to the kitchen cabinet store in the Richmond district to tell them about the vent issue. There is only one lady in the store. She saw me pulling in with my car to the driveway and went into the store from her warehouse. She recognized me since I went there before twice, once to get an estimate, and once to order the cabinets. She said that they sell 3x8 panels for the cabinets and that those panels can be used to hide the duct inside the cabinets. The contractor would need to drill a hole on the sides of the cabinets in order to pass the duct though them.

I informed Damian about this and he is OK in doing that. So problem solved! I was surprised he didn't mention that he was going to charge me more. I think the reason is because other work in the kitchen ended up being easier than originally planned for, so this might compensate for it. For example, the partition wall in the kitchen was a true partition wall that was not holding any weight, so there was no need to put a beam and studs on the sides. The only other thing with the cabinets is that I have to find a moving company to deliver those cabinets. :) This store doesn't deliver the cabinets. It's kind of odd that they don't. And the contractor said that their trucks are not big enough to get all the cabinets at once. It would require them to go back and forth a few times and it would take half a day to do so. So he got angry and said that it would cost $500 for him to pick up the cabinets, which is over the top. I can probably find furniture movers who can move the cabinets for about $300. No problem.

Talking about my contractor, Damian, I wish he was a little more cooperative and that he would view things from my point of view sometimes. I think he thinks about himself only. Every time I ask for something, he threatens me that it will cost more, even if it is a small change. Also, we have a leak in the building. The association asked to get an estimate from him. He gave an initial estimate to just open up the garage ceiling that has rotten wood. His estimate was on the high side I think, taking into consideration that it was just demo work and clean up. In any case, I informed the association about it and they didn't want to go forward with it. They said they have another handyman but then they never hired this other guy. So now, I have to push for fixing this leak issue because it might affect my condo. It would have been so much easier if Damian gave me a lower estimate that the association would accept. Alas, nothing is easy!

When I was looking for a contractor, I made appointments with five contractors for estimates. One was a no show. One was 45 minutes late. And three were on time. I got four estimates, all of which were quite expensive in my opinion, but two were lower. Maybe I should have used another source for finding contractors. I used Yelp.com, except for one who was a referral. If I had a few more weeks to select a contractor, I would have maybe found someone who is less expensive. But then again, you never know. Maybe they will take longer to finish the work and they would have been unreliable. I have to say that I am glad that Damian is dependable. He always does what he says he will do and he and his crew are quick and always clean up. It's been only 2.5 weeks since they started and they're about half done. So let's wait until the end to see how it goes. Fingers crossed!