Danielle and Austin's Kitchen & Garage Remodel: The Home Stretch
Name: Austin & Danielle (of Forage + Fodder)
Type of Project: Kitchen & Garage Remodel
Location: Austin, Texas
Type of building: One story, Single-Family House, 1250 square feet
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Another ridiculous week of working our tails off to get this remodel finished! We’ve basically been DIYing the hell out of ourselves before and after work and on the weekend for the last two weeks. Once we finished tiling in the kitchen, we called it quits for the night and decided to grout first thing in the morning, so that we could also install the shelves and vent hood.
Turns out that grouting takes FOREVER. We spent over five hours grouting and still didn’t finish. What’s that you ask? Do I have carpal tunnel now? Yes. No normal person’s wrist can handle the amount of “wax on wax off” movement required to grout an entire kitchen. Needless to say, we had to finish that up the next day, but we’d gotten enough done for David to help us install the vent hood. It’s a beast and I love it.
Our Nest thermostat was installed and we passed our final mechanical inspection, and our electricians came to install the last few fixtures and we passed our final electrical inspection as well!!! Now all that remains is the final overall inspection and then we’re done with contractors and permits and everything!
After the endless grout was completed, we got to installing our kitchen shelves. To achieve the ‘floating’ shelf look, we chiseled out notches in the bottom of each shelf for the brackets, and then used heavy duty screws to hold them in place. One thing we didn’t consider when opting for reclaimed wood was that the shelves may be slightly warped. It took some effort, lots of custom chiseling, and a tiny shim to get the two corner pieces to match up, but we did our best.
We’ve officially begun unpacking the kitchen, setting up our bar cart (a top priority), and I even found some more kitchen chairs for our table while thrifting. We also bought a new bed! At this point, it’s just finishing touches and making these empty rooms as cozy as the rest of our house.
Estimated time for project: 13 weeks
Time remaining: 7 Weeks Over
Check out the full series (so far) and be sure to join us tomorrow for installment #24 of Danielle and Austin's kitchen & garage remodel.
(Images and diary text: Danielle and Austin)
