Chef Kelly’s New Kitchen – 2010

Score!  Hood being delivered tomorrow!  Brick wall (see right wall from 9/16 post) is going to be cut to make room for the new double ovens.  And bay window will also be installed early next week.  It’s a good day~

See this pic to give you an idea of what the floor would look like…

We have a move-in date of the Thanksgiving weekend~  Goodbye old house, goodbye two house payments, hello~ squeaky new house, new paint, new floors, new kitchen!  Our kitchen’s at sea and is expected to arrive at the ports in mid-Nov whereupon it’ll go thru customs, warehouse and then to our house by early Dec.  Tile floors are laid and almost all done and arrival of kitchen fixtures, new bay window, and appliances – check!  Wawawawawaaait!  Almost check:( Little snafu (btw – did you know that according to wikipedia, that snafu is actually an acronym for…get this…”situation normal…all f*&ked up?”??  apparently originated from the US Army during WWII) – anyways – backorder on the freezer and the ventilation hood.  Our wonderful Michelle from Bulthaup’s been trying to pull some strings with mfg, Thermador and is hoping to get us a Gaggenau hood instead since it’s been months since we ordered it.  Crossing fingers~  BTW – we’re pretty stoked that we’ll be the first in the US to have their new bronze aluminum finish in our kitchen.  tres chic~

Below are some pix taken last few times we were up at the house showing the nice progression we’re making.  All thanks to Sean (our GC), Gabby(our bob-the-builder tile artist) and Julio/Orlando (electrician/plumber) – it’s finally coming together.  We expect initially to be living a la “boy scouts” with portable burners and an old fridge in the garage since kitchen won’t be ready right away.  Time to start shopping for dining table, lamps…along with furniture and a PUPPY…but think we need to win the lottery first and replenish our moola resources.  Can’t wait to be cooking, entertaining and food-porn-ing & cooking class video-taping in what’s going to be a perfect cook’s kitchen!  stay tuned…

   

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

    

Here’s the updated pic of our kitchen – TOTALLY torn up that it’s little scary.  And to add a little drama – we stopped by the house over the weekend right when the plumber was on the kitchen floor digging and cutting through the slab.  Of course, he accidentally cuts through some water pipe, where the water starts gooshing out all over the floor and he, in his little English-mostly-Spanish says, “Water?  Stop!”…and none of us can figure out where the main shut off valve for the water is.  After freaking out for what seemed like at least 20 minutes, his partner shows up, finds the main valve (which apparently is near the street) and all’s saved!  For few minutes, we thought we were going to live in a soggy, swamp-land of a kitchen.  Whew!   

One of the blueprints of our NEW kitchen being labored…(July 2009)   

With our new house   

kitchen elevation drawing sample

(new to us but needs a lot of work) – Chef Kelly gets a brand new, tv-ready, DREAM kitchen.  And documenting the process~   

Announcement!   

The New Kitchen will be equipped with amazing, to-die-for, and mucho moola-but-worth-it Bulthaup B3 kitchen.  Given that the Euros go on their vacation in August, it’ll take a while b4 the cabinets are here, but it’ll be beauuuuutiful!  It was the first one I picked out in the design magazines and the one we both fell in love with – the quality and craftmanship and timlessness, unlike some of the other trendy Italian kitchen designers…And our designers, Michelle & Gaby are meticulous and just plain awesome!!!   

Fun fact – while we were researching the vendors for the dream kitchen, I found some blogs that Brad Pitt has a Bulthaup too!  Maybe he’s a closet cook too?!  Also Emeril Lagasse, a legit cook – which is major props for our kitchen selection.  And ya – I also heard that Eric Clapton has Bulthaup too…but dunno anything about him since his records days other than I like his music sometimes?   

Hoping to have our Thanksgiving feast at our new kitchen by then – crossing fingers – Michelle/Gaby?;)   

August 6, 2009 – A fire at Dornbracht factory in Iserlohn, Germany.  A possible long (another) hiccup in getting our plumbing fixtures….tbd.   

 

 

 July 7th, 2009 – Let the demolition begin!  The previous owner had awful, rickety cabinets with coats and coats of thick, old paint and acrylic cabinet pulls.   

 

 June, 2009 – Kitchen definitely needs a major overhaul.  Closed off and not condusive for entertaining and cooking.  Needs major update.  Luckily, we were referred to Sean Icaza by our bestest friend, Jeff ^ ^ .  Sean,  a veteran general contractor in South Bay, is one of those guys who really gets it, our clean and modern style.  We just showed him some pictures of what we wanted, eg., polished concrete floors throughout the house, and it’s like “yup – i know how to get that done”.  Getting another GC to check out our house was a bit of a nightmare when he started talking about textured paint that looks like leather (on the ceiling!), and scratching his head when we mentioned concrete floors.  We’re in good hands!  Let’s just hope that things move smoothly and fast so that we can at least move into the house b4 fall!  Sean rocks!