What's in a ceiling??

It's been a looooong week.  So loooong that it actually moved in to the weekend - complete with CATASTROPHE in the middle of the day Saturday - - but we'll get to that in a minute...

First - - let me introduce you to foreman Luke.  I mention him many times, but now you can put a name to the face.  Luke was our finish foreman on Phase I of the CMR and I'm thrilled to have him heading up this job.  He's got a level head, is focused on getting the job done in time - - and more importantly, he's a calming influence when things go sideways.  And, things ALWAYS go sideways.   Sometimes they even go CATASTROPHICALLY sideways.

Smiling Foreman Luke....

But before CATASTROPHE - let's move on to progress... Beautiful piece of steel now holding up our ceiling and, thankfully, our roof.  All the temporary posts are down and the room is now entirely open.  We are just a little in love with this beam.

Once the beam went up and the walls came down, Dan took the day and taped off where our stuff was going to be.  This is done for a couple of reasons - - one to make sure it's gonna fit in according to the plans (which it does - - at least as far as fitting on the floor is concerned - - and THIS is a little foreshadowing for the CATASTROPHE...).   Second, it allows us to lay out the lights and make sure they're all in the right place.  See two pieces of blue tape in center island?  Those indicate the placement of our pendants...

Center Island in blue tape.

The whole right side of the "tall" cabinet wall and the sink counter layout.  Window is till the old window....waiting  anxiously for new window!!

Stove nook with new wall framed behind it and blue tape layout of bottom cabinets.  Window  gone bye-bye.

This is the last and final view from this angle - - open view from kitchen in to dining room.  As of today, that view is gone.  Sidewall that abuts the closet is now framed.  Dining room door is taped closed again.  The final "palette" for the kitchen is finished in that corner.

Lots of electrical/gas/plumbing work has been happening over the past few days, and I'll get in there with the camera later - but, we've got outlets, we've got switches, we've got gas lines and we've got water.  Lot's of gots!  But now you're kind of bored and you're wondering about the "CATASTROPHE" aren't you?  OK, I'll alleviate your curiosity...

Many months ago we started this project.  The kitchen was measured by our architects - - or at least the floor dimensions were.  The architect sent a CAD file to our cabinet designer in NYC.  She then proceeded to design a very cool and efficient kitchen in that space.  There were several back and forths about getting an inch here  - or getting a half and inch there (hence the space we took from the dining room and guest room closets).  We were looking for wee inches every where we could.   We must have measured that room corner to corner no less than 20 times.  We did it with a measuring tape, we did it with lasers, I even once measured the dining room closet space with my sewing yard stick.  It. Was. Measured.  We were CERTAIN.

And guess what?  When it was all laid out in blue tape - - it all fits.  It looks great.  Our many measurements worked perfectly.  Or did it?  Not so fast...

Yesterday we got a beautiful package of installation instructions from Henrybuilt on the many intricate steps that my construction guys were going to need to take to get my big old bad johnny cabinets installed the perfect way.  They came to me by email in a PDF file with a negative 2 font - - so Luke went to Kinkos and arrived here this morning with a BIG GIANT copy of the plans.  We looked at the plans - - everything fit.  That is until Luke takes his measuring tape and does something I never did in all the times that kitchen was measured.  He measured the height.  He checked the plans and measured the height again.  He checked the plans and used a laser to measure the height again.  Cause, guess what friends???  It's all kinds of wrong.  All kinds of 6" shorter wrong.

This wouldn't be a big CATASTROPHE if I didn't have floor to ceiling cabinets all along one wall.  Floor. To.  Ceiling.  Or technically now, I've got floor to roof cabinets sitting some where in Seattle biding their time to be trucked down here to SF.  This is NOT GOOD.

Foreman Luke, who I mentioned is great at keeping me calm when things go sideways -- has repeated "don't worry, we'll work it out" about a dozen times.  So, I haven't completely come unglued.  I don't know who measured the height.  Was it our architects who then passed that info on to our kitchen designer? Was it our kitchen designer who just plugged in a number?  I haven't got a clue.  I know it wasn't me  - since I never measured - - but I suspect that the buck stops here since I suspect I should have.

Wrote panicked email to Kitchen Designer in NYC.  Kitchen Designer says DON'T panic.  They can fix it.  I'm not exactly panicked, but I suspect my wallet will be when the "don't panic" becomes of-course-we-can-fix-it-for-the-low-low-cost of a boat load of money.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.....