After 16 years, the walls came down and my kitchen dream became a reality. From a closed in area to a beautiful wide open space for entertaining. This Thanksgiving was a wondrous event. Even with 24 people, many cooks and helpers, the kitchen worked! After interviewing dozens of “kitchen remodelers”, who said, “Oh, those are bearing walls” or “We only do cabinets, floors and countertops”. They offered no solution. Finally someone came in and said, “We can do it all”. Yes, we can remove the walls, get a structural engineer, deal with the city and work with you on the design and materials and do the wall repairs, final painting, everything with money to spare for appliances. At the first interview, he asked me my budget, then proceeded to calculate a rough estimate and drew a preliminary drawing by hand. In 2 days, I had a detailed electronic estimate. In 4 days, a rough electronic design The final project, even with the extra cost for the structural changes came in within $500 of my budget, including high end appliances.

Six months later, I can’t say it was all wine and roses…lots of dust, pulling out hair, worry, frantic phone calls, several downright mistakes, appliance delivery problems, etc. But, after all is said and done, it’s beautiful.

One of the biggest challenges: the hood for my 12 1/2ft. ceiling. Turns out the manufacturer product only extended to 10 ft and that was with a telescoping vent that showed horizontal seams (ugly). Sheet metal places did not want to take the job because it was not a huge job.. I ended up buying the steel metal online, cut to order, pre-drilled for screws and shipped to my door cheaper than any manufactured solution. It certainly is a unique solution, thanks to my creative designer.