Chicago, Design, One Room Challenge™

#OneRoomChallenge 3: Building it Back Up – Chicago Downtown Kitchen Rejuvenation

chicago urban kitchen remodel - one room challenge

Welcome back! We’re on Week 3 of Calling it Home and HouseBeautiful magazine’s Fall One Room Challenge – Chicago Urban Kitchen Remodel, a 6-week event twice a year where designers and bloggers come together to share how they’ve made over a room in their home. This year, we get to participate because, well, we made over a room and I have a blog!

orc-logo-oneroomchallengeHere’s where we stand:

  • Week 1: Why and how we got the opportunity to remodel our kitchen and where we started.
  • Week 2: Envisioning our look and feel

And here we are, on Week 3 – Building it back up!

So, due to the 6 week nature of the One Room Challenge, we’re really speeding up time here, but by the time the photo above was taken, we had waited 5 weeks while living in temporary housing for these cabinet beauties and while our new floor was installed (the whole reason we are all here right now).

It was really something to start to see the puzzle pieces come together! As a refresher, here was the cabinetry rendering provided by our cabinetry expert – looks pretty accurate, right?

Kitchen-cabinetry-rendering-wall
Here’s a rendering of our cabinetry design.

We ran into one snag when our new larger and leveled island was installed. Our installers accidentally installed the end pieces on the wrong sides, so the ends were not the right color – the colored ends were supposed to be outward facing but were instead inward facing. “They” say there are always a few things that need extra work during a remodel, so this was not a showstopper as just an aesthetic feature. Our fix is that our cabinetry expert ordered two end panels in the grey color desired and those will be installed soon.

While the cabinetry was being mounted, we had other homework to accomplish:

  • Shop for countertops – Many of the shops we found were very low profile, essentially a very small showroom and warehouse with slabs – ask to see both in case the samples aren’t accurate representations of the current stock. We went with the provider that had the most selection and the most knowledge about each option. And yet again, we asked for samples and they were so helpful as we put the rest of the elements together! We went with quartz (a stone compound) – stay tuned for the reveal!
  • Shop for extras
    • Stove hood/vent – We found a very low footprint vent that would look sleek and blend in
    • Cabinetry pulls/hardware – We needed 37 to cover each door and drawer and went with Home Depot champagne color – much more affordable than the $25/piece pricing of high-end options
    • Faucet – We went with brushed nickel for a softer, more muted look

This week’s post is brief to represent the patience we needed while the rest of the elements were put in place. Next week, the fun stuff comes before the big reveal! I’ll leave you with a sneak peek of my honey (otherwise known as the “Inventory Manager”) inspecting our new kitchen storage:

Chicago Kitchen Remodel - cabinetry install

 





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