Kitchen Remodel week 2!

Well I have to say so far this entire process is far and away exceeding my expectations! Good grief I hope I didn't just jinx us! Mike Carducci and his company Homewreckers construction is the contractor we hired through recommendation from McDaniel's kitchen and bath designs, probably the best kitchen design in the Lansing area. They have done more in a week and a half than I can even imagine and the quality of their work is top notch! Jordan Chemanski is our trim carpenter that works for Mike and man oh man does he do amazing work! If you need a great trim carpenter he's your guy!

Jenna Way, our kitchen designer from McDaniel's drew up the entire plan and did a fabulous job! We are going to LOVE our new kitchen! Fortunately the process has been relatively painless for us living in construction since we have a full bar area off our dining room with a full sized refrigerator and bar countertop. We moved our little counter top Breville convection/toaster oven to the bar and microwave as well which pretty much gives us everything we need. We just can't do anything on a range but thank goodness it's starting to warm up enough to grill so we've been doing just fine.

Week two has the hole cut in the ceiling and the GINORMOUS fan and duct being installed for the hood. Good grief it's so powerful I think I could blow dry my hair in the morning while making the kids breakfast!

Mike put up a plastic perimeter wall for us blocking off the kitchen from the rest of the house 

to protect us from all the drywall dust and debris from the hood installation

getting the duct in place

week two also involved a bit more extensive electrical work putting the new convection oven/microwave in

We got a sweet deal from our friends who work at Whirlpool on a fantastic KitchenAid oven!

OK - I sure wasn't expecting THIS outside!

Getting the ductwork in for the hood and blower. Giant blower fan will be installed

in the outside wall

Bamboo from Teragren cut to size for our butcher block in the counter. We will use the rest

of the bamboo slab for bench tops for our custom bench/locker area that Mike will build for us at the garage entry

Putting in the frame for the mammoth hood

Wolf hood - it's a MONSTER!

There might have been a few profanities while the guys brought the

1000 pound Sub Zero in to install! Happily I was at a meeting in Detroit and missed all of the action!

Just...shove... it in!!!! Haha!

ANA granite from Flint was here to do the template for the counters. Crazy what they

do with an iPad, laser pointer and a tripod!

Sub is in... well almost

My beautiful new KitchenAid micro/convection oven. Butcher block will sit above it right next to the range. The door opens down like an oven and looks like a small oven rather than a microwave. I've gone from a one oven kitchen to three now!

Thanksgiving at the Hokes!

There it is - that GIANT blower fan all installed like it's been there all along!

Thinking maybe we should install one in Drew's bathroom... haha!

So this is the island before it was demoed but you can see in the back by the garage door there is a little partial wall. That came out and that is where we will put in the bench and locker storage area

so that I don't have to see 9 pairs of shoes by the door in a house that 4 people live in!

(insert eye twitch here...)

Wall is out 

It definitely opens the room up so much more

beautiful trim work above the Sub Zero

and above the hood. Looks fabulous!

Supposedly the range will be moving from the garage into it's new home today but I'm not feeling overly confident on that one so we will wait until next week's edition to post the pic of that!

Granite install in 2 weeks followed by tile backsplash. Next week the bay window goes in the kitchen where the large picture window currently is. Bench and locker area sometime between now and then!

Looking like mid May for completion and move back in!

Can't wait!