Cabinets...a work in progress.

When we began this house building adventure, we signed up to do more ourselves than we'd ever done before.  This included installing our own cabinetry.

We ordered our cabinets through a factory, rather than have them custom made.  When they were delivered, they arrived wrapped up like this:

No instructions, a vague notion of where each piece belonged, and a small panic attack in-sued.  Thankfully, I had the help of our contractor, and in-laws.  The first cabinets we installed were in the kitchen.  We figured hanging the upper cabinets is infinitely easier before the lower cabinets were installed.

Once I got the gist of things, I installed a lot of the lower cabinets myself...and then we realized we needed extra parts.  Even though these are factory cabinets, a lot of "custom" work is still involved.


I was grateful to have the wisdom and help of my father-in-law to install the island cabinets, especially!  


The cabinets have been a work in progress.  We finished what we could, ordered the additional parts, (and even had to have one replaced!), and worked on the flooring in the meantime.  

We've had to tell the littles they cannot keep running around the kitchen island...but it was so fun!

Here is my bathroom vanity.  It took three attempts, and some pretty bad dings in the walls, but I got them in all by myself.

Our counter tops arrived late last Thursday evening.  {There was a delay in getting them delivered, which involved the delivery driver getting in an accident just a quarter mile from the house!!}  We set the counter tops in place, and were a bit bewildered as to how to install them properly.  None of them seemed to fit!  I might have cried just a bit.

However with some more great help from Big Brother and our contractor, we got them installed on Friday.  I didn't know we'd have to build up the counter tops for them to sit correctly on the cabinets.

However, we learned some new skills, even resolved a little damage in shipping, and it all worked out in the end.

The counter tops are pre-fabricated laminate.  This allowed them to have a special rolled edge, and makes them look a little more like a stone product.  The dark counters in the kitchen are finished in "River Gem Stone", and the white counter tops everywhere else are "Perla Piaza".  They are Wilsonart HD products.

Once the counter tops were built up, it was Big Brother's job to help me secure them with screws.  He could climb into the cabinets better than I could!

The kitchen is looking much more finished.  And we're one step closer to moving in.

I can't wait to cook up something yummy in here!