Now’s a good time for a comprehensive update on our kitchen rework.

[This may indeed be too too comprehensive for many. I’m marking an accomplishment, moving on to the next phase, and trying to get the blog up to date all in one. Scroll down, check out the photos, and save the text for a very rainy day :) .]

Our last major entry on home improvement was The go-to guy, way back in Dec 2007, featuring photos of Chuy and our new exterior “brick” color scheme. [For more history, you could also read Enough for now, Chuy is back!, La Casa de Don Manuel, and for scrapbook photos, visit Casa de Keith y Leigh. ]

The rework of the laundry room and kitchen occupied a great deal of our attention in 2008. In the earlier part of the year we did lots of planning - taking measurements, making floor plans, researching kitchen designs, materials, electrical requirements, etc. By the end of August we were ready to see if Chuy was available and get started on phase one. Phase one included reworking all the electrical, some minor plumbing changes, the usual cement work, painting, polishing, etc. - everything needed to get ready for our kitchen appliances, cabinets, and countertop.

For the electrical, I had decided on installing a new 240V service and circuit breaker box, more or less dedicated to the laundry room and kitchen, rather than try to expand the existing system. It would however also power a new electric gate opener, an extra outdoor electrical outlet, and leave room for some further expansion. Outdoors, the new electrical service would be brought down from the pole on the street, through the meter base, buried underground, and run into a new breaker box in the laundry room. Indoors, the electricity would be run from the breakers, through conduit cemented into the walls, to the outlets in the laundry room and kitchen, and also back outside to the outlet and gate opener.

The “minor” plumbing changes included reworking laundry room and service patio water drainage, moving two outdoor water faucets (displaced by rework for the electrical), reworking the laundry room shut-offs, preparing for a utility sink, providing water for an ice maker, and connections for a dishwasher. We also had to redo the propane gas connection for the stove - our new and improved kitchen design had it on the opposite wall.

The cement work included building a new wall to visually block the laundry room appliances, replacing two windows in the kitchen, and patching all the other rework. We had an old walkway torn out, pathway installed, step built, and minor roof and window leaks repaired as well.

Painting the laundry room and kitchen and rejuvenating the grout would put on the finishing touches.

So this was a major project…

Here are two photos from mid-September 2008 with the chaos in full swing:

Chuy did his regular very fine job and everything was finished by early October. All we had to do was wait for CFE, the Federal Electricity Commission, to connect the electricity from the street to our property and plug in a meter.

And we waited, and waited, and waited… Between Chuy and I, we went to the main office in Chapala more then ten times in the following few months with no result. We figured it would eventually get done and let it go for a while.

In the meantime, we had our own work to do. I had the finish work to do on the electrical wiring indoors, and together, Leigh and I finally had to choose and buy our kitchen appliances (refrigerator, dishwasher, and stove). I’ll spare you the details, but it did seem like we went in circles from white, to black, to stainless, and back at least a couple times. And more than once we went to the dealer to buy a particular model refrigerator only to find that it had been discontinued. In the end however, we selected a white bottom-freezer refrigerator that we are very happy with. The dishwasher and stove purchases were easy and followed soon thereafter.

We had our appliances by December. It took a little while, and a few more Chuy visits, to get all the fittings just right. Eventually everything was hooked up properly and working fine. Everything except the electricity that is. We had to run extension cords to power the appliances.

We waited. Still no electricity from CFE…

The power was finally connected in June while we were traveling in the USA. This would be about nine months after the initial request. We believe it was ultimately the result of an acquaintance in the neighborhood making a personal request on our behalf to someone he knew at CFE. This is really the first time in Mexico that our normal business practices just did not work. It seems a personal contact was necessary - or it might never have happened?!

Finally early last week, I concluded the finish work on my fancy GFI-protected split-phase countertop circuit. This allowed us to move the toaster and coffeemaker back into the kitchen. (Half the kitchen having been in the dining room.) The adjustable shelving, microwave, and “pantry” followed. Our dining room returned to being a dining room only, and our kitchen is very much functioning like a kitchen. We have only the cabinets and countertop to go now…

So here we are with the kitchen in the best shape it has ever been:

And the laundry room around the corner, all put back together ready for cabinets and a utility sink:

It think the end of this kitchen project might finally be within sight now.