Albemarle Reno

“Kitchen done yet?” This question is the renovation equivalent of the “Baby here yet?” phone calls I’d get my ninth month of pregnancy. For better or worse, I gave our kitchen a due date back in September by blithely announcing to anyone with earlobes that I’d be hosting Thanksgiving for 15 at the new place. So “Kitchen done yet?” has become a completely time appropriate question — and time is running out.

So how are we doing? I’m going to let the pictures do most of the talking, with a wall-by-wall time lapse series showing our progress — upcoming posts will give more detail about the process.

For a quick primer on where we began with the kitchen, and our plans for renovating it, see posts A Peek at the Kitchen Plan and More Kitchen Details. Renovating is probably not the right word, since we demo’ed what was there (save the fireplace) and started from almost less than scratch.

Here’s the hutch-wall design, as conceived by Intrepid Architect,

and its execution

So hutch, totally done, big check-mark there.

Here’s the drawing of the wall with the new bay window,

and how the window came together

A couple more sash-locks, and it’s finished.

The major-appliance and cabinetry wall, the most relevant to the holiday, shown below

Here’s the wall post-demo and during the framing out of the ceiling and walls

and on up through the present-day in the series of pictures below

So will I be grilling my bird out on the porch? Friday was the magic day — range hooked up and ready to go. Plenty of time for me and my sous-chefs to break it in, which we did.

Here’s cooking before (on the grill in July)

and after (on Saturday)

Happy Thanksgiving to all.