Decisions
There are a lot of decisions that have to be made on a remodel project. I'll be sharing some of our decision making, research and shopping experiences here.
Granite
We started our search for materials with the granite. Jack and I knew we wanted our granite to have a lot of movement, other that we weren't sure what we were looking for. We wanted color, but I kept going back to the browns.
Kris and I went by Arizona Tile where I found a really pretty green granite I liked a lot. But they only had two small slabs and it was discontinued. I thought it would be nice in the bathroom, but I wasn't so sure about in the kitchen. In all my searching I never saw one quite like it, but I'm still not sure I wanted the green in the kitchen anyway.
On another expedition, Kris took me shopping down to the granite yards she liked in Anaheim. They had huge selections and I saw lots of interesting granite. I also checked out other places on my own. At all the places I saw granite that I liked and picked up samples. It's hard to tell from the little samples as they often don't look like the majority of the slab. But nothing really seemed right.
When we started working with Julie, she took me shopping as well. One of the places we visited was Rock Solid Granite in Upland. It's a small indoor granite yard, but we found one that was as nice as anything I had liked at other placed and it went well with our existing floor. I showed it to Jack & Kris, but we had reservations about it being too light and too brown. While looking at that granite, we took a look at another granite that I fell in love with. It had the movement we were looking for and lots of different colors. What really told me this was "the one" was the critter! There is a section of the granite that looks kind of like a lizard or maybe a prehistoric mammal. See if you can see it in the photo. The granite is called Juparana Crema Bordeaux. Later when we had them show us the different slabs so we could pick the ones we wanted, we were happy to see that the "critter" is in several of the slabs. So we may end up with a couple of the critters in different areas of the house. We will just have to wait and see when it's time to cut the slabs. We picked two of those slabs and one that has a "river" running through it. It will be interesting to see if we can keep these features reasonably intact when the slabs are cut.
Cabinets
This section has been moved to the cabinets page.
Sinks
Originally we were thinking about a white porcelain sink with a half height divider between the two equal bowls.
But after more thought we decided we preferred a single large bowl. Then we started looking at the Blanco Silgranit sinks. They are made of 80% granite and are supposed to be very durable, heat and stain resistant. The more I read about them the more I liked them. We decided on the metallic gray—it should go really well with the granite and stainless steel appliances.
The first image is the main sink in metallic gray. The second image is the prep sink, but shown in white instead of the metallic gray we are getting.
Appliances
After Kris had such poor customer service from Pacific Sales, I knew that really wasn't an option. I initially tried working with Kiva Kitchen & Bath in Orange County per Julie's recommendation. Unfortunately her rep wasn't very responsive, which didn't make Julie happy. It worked out for the best anyway.
While waiting for Kiva's to get back to me, I checked out a local place, Cagles Appliance Center in Ontario. Kris had purchased her hood from them and recommended them. They have been around for a long time, service everything they sell and offer outstanding customer service. I have been very pleased working with them. On several occasions, I waited weeks to hear back from Kiva's. The Cagle's salespeople have always responded to my emails right away. I've even received immediate responses to emails I've sent after hours! Where else can you get that kind of customer service these days?
Oven & Dishwasher
Before we started shopping for our appliances, I thought I would be getting the 2 separate dishwasher drawers. I really liked the idea of being able to do small frequent loads. But it was pointed out to me that they don't hold tall items, including regular plates. That didn't sound ideal.
When I actually started appliance shopping, I looked at the Electrolux oven and dishwasher early on. I really liked the looks and all the features of these two items and kept coming back to them. I especially liked the dishwashers 3 adjustable positions of the top rack and all the configuration options. It is supposed to be very quiet—another pet-peeve of ours, especially with the open floor plan.
The Electrolux oven has really nice smooth gliding racks and lovely offset lighting. It also has a "perfect turkey" button—it'll be interesting to see how well it really works...
The Electrolux line is a bit different from the Electrolux Icon line. I had been trying to find out about the differences from Kiva, but never did get the information from them. I ended up calling Electrolux and they were very helpful. The Icon line is supposed to be the top of the line, but the Electrolux line is newer and has a few new features that haven't been implemented in the Icon line yet. There are also some subtle differences in looks and handles. I decided that I wanted the Electrolux line. Only after I had decided to purchase my appliances from Cagle's did I hear back from Kiva's that they could only get the Icon line.
We debated back and forth about a single or double oven and whether we should get a warming drawer. In the end we decided to pass on the warming drawer, but get the double oven. I think that will be more versatile for us.
Microwave
Once I had decided on the Electrolux oven and dishwasher, it was time to make decisions on the other appliances. I decided to go with the Electrolux microwave, mainly because I couldn't decide on which other one to get and it will be nice to have it match the other appliances.
The Sharp microwave drawer was recommended by lots of people and probably would be nice, but I didn't want to loose the drawer space where it was convenient to put it.
Beverage Fridge
The Uline beverage fridge was a strong contender, but in the end I decided to get the Electrolux. I didn't see any advantage to the Uline, the prices were similar and the Electrolux would match the other appliances.
Refrigerator
We had decided on a french door refrigerator. As Electrolux doesn't make one, that was out. We decided on the Maytag as it had the most features were were looking for. We wanted a large deli compartment, decent sized vegetable drawers, a chilled door storage for milk, ice & water in the door and decent freezer size. The drawers on the Maytag freezer are nicer than many and the chilled door storage was difficult to find in other models.
Cooktop
I had quickly decided on a 36" cooktop as that was what I had and I didn't want to go smaller and I saw no reason I needed anything larger. I was pretty set on gas, although I did briefly consider the induction cooktop. That got vetoed as soon as I realized all my pots & pans would need to be replaced.
I spent a lot of time debating which cooktop after that point—there are a lot of choices. I wanted something that was easy to keep clean, worked well, looked nice and had good low and high burners. Eventually I narrowed it down to the Electrolux, a Wolf and a Dacor. The Electrolux was dropped from the list when I discovered they didn't recommend drawers under the cooktop!?!? I decided on the Dacor for ease of cleaning and looks. It has sealed burners and a bead-blasted sealed spill basin which won't scratch as easily as the stainless steel.
Cagles Appliance doesn't carry the Dacor or Wolf lines, so I purchased my cooktop from The Great Indoors. Warren, the salesman I dealt with was very nice and helpful when I was looking at appliances earlier. When I contacted him about some questions before my final purchase he found the answers to my questions (as opposed to just telling me something that may or may not be accurate which happened on other occasions).
Faucets
One of my first remodel decisions was to pick out the kitchen faucet. I went to Pacific Sales to look around at appliances, etc. and really liked the Brizo Pascal faucet. I hadn't planed on making any decisions on this early shopping trip, but I loved the faucet and never wanted to look at any others.
The Pascal offers hands-free functions which I think will be really useful. I hate touching the faucet to turn it on while my hands are yucky from preparing a meal or feeding the dogs. I think this will be much more sanitary—and it's really cool too!
Since we are spending so much on this one faucet and we had just replaced our kitchen faucet less than two years ago, I decided to have it reinstalled in the island for the prep-sink.
Ventilation
This was the last appliance type kitchen decision we made. It was probably the toughest decision so far.
At first we were going to get a down draft type vent—until I realized how much valuable real estate I would loose under the island. There was plenty of space behind the cooktop, but I couldn't find one that would use that space. Most of them went down at the back of the cooktop and took up a lot of space in front of that directly under the cooktop. That would seriously compromise my pots & pans drawers! On top of that, unless we used a recirculating system we would have problems venting from the island. And the recirculating systems took up even more room! So that idea got vetoed. There were some that would take up space on the side, but I would still loose a lot of valuable space in the cabinets.
So then we started thinking about an island hood again. Our main concern was having it block our view along with how it would look. We are planning on installing it a little higher than the recommended height so it won't impede our view. We debated between going with a more minimal look or a more massive focal point. In the end we opted for the minimal sleek look.
The major concerns with the ventilation system was the noise. We opted for the Kobe as it is very quiet, and well made. Kris is very happy with her Kobe and I liked everything else I read about it. Cagles carries them and they had good things to say about them as well.
The Kobe hood isn't really long enough for our vaulted ceilings so Julie & Frank will need build something where it meets the ceiling. There was another brand I slightly considered which had a similar look and noise level, but we would have had to have it shipped from back east and the manufacturer was in Italy. I had some concerns about support if there were any problems and to top it off they didn't return my phone call.
Floor Tile
Jack and I also picked out our floor tile today from the samples Julie had located for us. We will be doing the multi-shade tiles on the bottom left of the display board photo with multiple sizes.
I neglected to take a picture of the border tile yesterday that we will be using on the floor until it was too dark. So here it is. We will be putting that in front of the step into the family room and across towards the slider as well as between the living room/office and the kitchen/island. It is the first sample that Julie found for us and it stayed our first pick.
