Thursday

Arrival of cabinets

This blog chronicles my entire kitchen renovation from start to finish. Greentea Design has provided me with their solid wood kitchen cabinets, and I'm taking care of the rest.

If you'd like to be brought up to date, check out the archive in the sidebar for previous posts. I posted recently about the flooring, and now.....the cabinets have arrived!!!


I was sooooooooo excited for the day the cabinets were to arrive. Since Greentea Design is based in Toronto, I had only seen the cabinets on their website, and got a tiny sample (about 3 inches) sent to me in the mail to help with my countertop selection. Friday was the day....and it turned out to be bright and early. There was a bit of chaos early that morning as I scrambled to get some extra hands out to my house ASAP to help me unload the truck, but was quickly forgotten once I got a glimpse of the cabinets. The unloading only took about 20 minutes (once they got a system going it was easy peasy). I wasn't able to take photos of them being unloaded because it was raining that day. The first photo I managed to take was of all the cabinets stacked in the living room.


The cabinets were left there for the majority of the day because I wanted to get the walls and ceiling painted before getting the cabinets in place (turns out the walls weren't ready and needed more sanding - but we found this out after 3 coats of paint and after the electrician got the potlights working). For several hours the cats had a ball climbing all over them.


WOW - they were packed so carefully. I worked for moving companies for a few summers during my university years and I have never seen anything packed like that. For each cabinet there was styrofoam on the corners, then a box that wrapped all the way around, then moving blankets wrapped and taped (with perfect corners, like how us women wrap presents), and then shrink-wrapped. It was like Christmas morning unwrapping each piece. And not a scratch or mark on any piece. What a relief!


All of the cabinets were ready to go once unwrapped - the base cabinets had their sliding doors wrapped in foam and were placed inside along with the shelves, and the uppers had their shelves wrapped and placed inside also. So all we had to do carry them into the kitchen, place them against the wall and VOILA! Instant kitchen! It was literally that easy. Well, the uppers needed installing of course but because Greentea's cabinets are freestanding, there is really no installation required. My boyfriend and I had no problems moving each piece into place. While the cabinets are not made from extremely dense wood, they were not as heavy as we expected them to be. On that note, they are VERY sturdy and their sturdiness made them very easy to handle.

Here are the first pieces we unwrapped, the pantry. Sorry the lighting is poor but it was into the evening before we were able to get to this stage.


Then we unwrapped the base cabinets and put them in their new homes. (I would typically ensure the drawers were closed before snapping photos but Phoebe had climbed into a drawer and I gave up trying to get her out).





There are the uppers - I considered glass doors but I'm REALLY happy I went with this style to match the lowers. And I can put anything in them and not worry about it having to look nice.


And this is the beginnings of my new kitchen. *huge smile*



There has been some progress since that last photo - but I'll save that for next time.