After years of dealing with a 30″ slide in typical range/oven combo, it was time for a nice upgrade.

See old kitchen prior to renovation for more, but here’s what I was dealing with:

The choice was made early on to go with a Wolf range with a charbroil grill. After some research, the decision was refined to do a Wolf Range Top with the charbroil and do a separate electric convection oven.

The Wolf sealed burner range top, model SRT364C was the optimal choice:

Wolf SRT364C Range Top with Chargrill

This puppy is beautiful. The control is amazing. Separate hi to lo settings for cooking and simmering on each burner (there is a hi to low cook range, and a separate hi to low simmer range on each big red knob). The char grill is amazing also. We grilled shrimp with blackening seasoning for it’s first run. Pretty cool having all that smoke going on inside the house…the Proline Range top swallowed it all up. I’ve since done burgers using 80/20 beef which creates quite a flame/smoke show, and some striped bass/rock fish for fish tacos. I could have bought 4 or 5 stainless steal range/oven combos for the price of this thing, but its worth it. Simply put, the Wolf range is a beast.

The Wolf Range Top: A Beast!

Note that as of the writing of this post the kitchen is not complete. However, I’m cooking every night because I just can’t help it!

Proline Range Hood Model PLJW 101.36

The hardest part about installing the hood was the duct work. This really has little to do with the hood itself, and will vary for each setup. I had to go up into a “bridge” cabinet, make a 90 degree turn, go into a closet on the other side of the wall, make a 90 degree turn up, then one more turn before heading out a side wall via a crawlspace between floors. This crawl space is made possible becasue of a lowered ceiling in the pantry/bath area off the kitchen.

Under the Cabinet for Range Hood Installation

Be sure to have your power supply setup also. I had a standard 120v outlet behind the cabinet and just cut a whole through the back of the cabinet for the range hood power supply

I cut a square hole in the bottom of the cabinet, and then a round whole into the back and through the wall. The ProLine Range Hood model PLJW 101.36 has a square offtake transitioning into an 8″ round duct.

Under Cabinet Hole for Range Hood Installation

Back of Cabinet Hole for Range Hood Installation

You can see that I had to cut out a portion of the top of the cabinet as well in order to accommodate the 8″ round 90 degree turn out the back.

Installed Range Hood Under Cabinet

Installed ProLine PLJW 101.36

Viola! ProLine Range Hood installation complete!

As far as ProLine goes, the were pretty good to deal with. I had an issue with my first order, which was a different model, that apparently got damaged in route with UPS. It was a bit confusing when it didn’t show up per the tracking and after a little research I figured out what happened. The Proline Rep was pleasant to deal with and easy to get in touch with. I had to choose a different model since my original choice was now out of stock. They gave me a credit for my headaches and the new one arrived quickly. Overall a good experience.

The hood is working great. The noise level is very decent. On the high setting at 1000 CFM, there is plenty of noise but not enough to hamper conversation right near it. The lower setting are basically ‘quiet’. More quiet than the old tiny recirculating “hood” I have over the 30″ stove. It’s also a very attractive hood.

I used contractors paper available at your local big box hardware store to cover the floor while the work continued elsewhere.

The kitchen cabinets arrived pretty much as expected.  They are maple with a burnished coffee glaze and cabinet-grade plywood boxed.  The drawers feature the hydraulic closing mechanism which is nice when the drawer is full.

At first they sat in the living room as the travertine was finished, then moved into the kitchen:

It is not difficult to hang kitchen cabinets if you haven’t any help.  Simply attach a level board at the bottom line of the cabinet and hold the cabinet up with one hand while using a screw gun/drill with the other.  Be sure to pre drill pilot holes were the studs will line up.  Basically this is lot of measuring and line drawing.

Hanging Cabinets with One Person

I used 2 1/2 inch deck screws with a washer to connect cabinets to teh wall.  Be sure to only screw through the frame portion of the cabinet.  For cabinet to cabinet side screws, I used 1 5/8 deck screws.  TIP: Drill a hole just big enough to slide the screw through in the first cabinet, and a normal pilot hole in the second joining cabinet.  This way the screw won’t “grip” the first cabinet and push the two cabinets apart when it reaches the second…it will try to pull them snug together, which is what you want.

1 5/8 screws accommodate for the space between cabinets

2 1/2 inch deck screws with washer join cabinets to studs in the wall

If you play your cards right and get the first (corner if you have one) cabinet right, there wont be a lot of shimming and leveling on the others.

For the tile, we chose an 18″ square natural Travertine tile.  The travertine was very porous on the back side so we used a larger than normal notch on the trough and “back buttered” each tile to fill the holes.  Here is a tile summary:

• 18″ Natural Travertine Tiles, honed and filled on top side
• Each Tile “Back Buttered” with flat side of trough to fill all the natural holes
• 1/8 inch spaces – the combination of a large tile with a small gap looks outstanding in this size room
• High grade silicone reinforced thinset (used a lot more than a normal tile job due to the large notch and back buttering porous natrual holes from salt formation.
• Miracle enhance and seal sealant (notes below about how I screwed this up and how to fix it).
• End Result is simply beautiful

Drywall with recessed lights and a high ceiling equals difficult

Travertine Tiles Coming Along

18" Travertine Tile with 1/8" Spacers

Miracle Enhance and Seal Brings out the Unique Pattern of Each Tile

Mineral Spirits Clean up Sticky Residue from Sealing Floor

My mistake:  A problem I had when doing the floor in this kitchen renovation was that I did not do a good job of using the Miracle Enhance and Seal.  The directions clearly state that after you apply and let penetrate for 3-5 minutes, you need to wipe off all excess sealant.    I wiped up the excess using a bath towel but quite frankly on a floor this large it got old quick.  I should have had more towels on hand and wiped each tile dry.  I didn’t.  The result was an uneven shine with patches of stickyness on the tiles.  This was clearly the result of leftover Miracle sealant.  I confirmed this with a call to the company, and they recomended their own residue remover or simple mineral spirits.

I bought mineral spirits and a bag of cotton towels from the local big box.  Poured the mineral spirits on a towel, wiped each tile, wiped up and dried each tile.

So here is the run down of all the work by round of hands and knees working on the tile floor for this kitchen improvement:

420 square feet covered this many times on the hands and knees:

1.) original tile lay with thinset and spacers

2.) scrape and clean each tile of excess thinset

3.) grout spaces

4.) First pass at wiping excess grout and smoothing grout lines with sponge

5.) Second pass at wiping excess grout (now just the residue) from each tile w/ sponge and multiple buckets of clean water

6.) Third pass at wiping grout residue from each tile, this time avoiding grout lines and buffing w/ towel

7.) Apply and wipe Miracle Enhance & Seal

8.) Clean and dry each tile with mineral spirits to fix the residue problem mentioned above.

After all of this I know each little distinct pattern of every tile ‘like the back of my hand”.

notes for kitchen improvement

Kitchen renovation notes…

more notes for kitchen improvement

Noting position of cabinets

Note to Johnny Chihuahua

Cabinet Location Notes for Kitchen Renovation

electrical notes for kitchen renovation

Since the ceilings are 10 feet high in for this kitchen improvement project, I went with 6″ cans.

6" Recessed Lighting Cans

I used “new construction” cans for the side of the kitchen were I tore out the old dropped ceiling, and “exisitng construction” or refurb cans for the other side.

These cans by REX lighting come with convenient templates for cutting drywall on the refurb side and all cans have easy plug n click connections for the wiring.

Recessed Lighting for Kitchen Ceiling Remodel

Recessed Lighting Template for Kitchen Improvement

Recessed Lighting in Kitchen

Recessed Kitchen Lighting Installed in New Construction Side

The blue junction boxes are for the pendants that will hang over the kitchen island.

Kitchen Improvement: Island Lighting

A critical part of any renovation, particualrly a kitchen imp-rovement, is good lighting design.  The cans are positioned so the light flows to the desired area.  For these (and most) cans, there is about a 1:1 relationship between the spread of the light and the height of the light.  So for example, when I was considering the cans close to the support header, I spositioned them at least as far away as teh header is tall so that the light would not shine on and bring attention to the header.  Similar thought process when determining the position of the light cans over the counter.  I want as much light as possible to shine in to cabinets, on the counter, and not cast a shadow by being blocked by the top of the counter.

Multiple light zones are also important.  This kitchen is designed with 6 distinct light zone to achieve the right combination for the right atmosphere:

1.) Main recessed in work area

2.) Main recessed (dimable) in eating/seating area

3.) Hanging mini pendants over the island

4.) under cabinet task light

5.) Over cabinet accent light

6.) Grill/Range light

Here is the swithc box for juicing and switching the cabinet, main work area cans, and the hanging island pendants:

Lighting Zones for Kitchen Improvement

All New, Clean Wiring for this Kitchen Improvement

bowed floor joists

bowed floor joists

So the next step was a new subfloor and then a layer of hardy board cement based sheets.  This processes was continued into the pantry and kitchen area.  Rebuilding the floor from scratch was not part of the plan (or budget) for this kitchen improvement.  There were probably some work-arounds that could have been done, or I could have kept the old floor.  At the end of the day I think I did the right thing with a nice level floor throughout.

new hardy-board on kitchen floor

hardibacker cement board leveleing floor

In front of the sealed up fireplace self-leveling cement was pours to make it flush with the hardiboard.

Kitchen Improvement: Rebuilding and leveling the Floor Complete

level kitchen floor

Level into the (soon to be) walk in pantry, coat closet, bathroom:

level bathroom floor

If you are including an island in your new kitchen, don’t forget the electric before sealing up the floor!

electric for kitchen island

tile wont come up

As you can tell from pictures of the kitchen the room was divided into two areas.  Although both areas had the same tile, removing the tile floor was very different in each area of the kitchen.  The side of the kitchen that had the appliances was relatively easy removing the tile.  The other side, however was tile removing hell!  It was nearly impossible to separate the tile from teh plywood subfloor.  Each tile smashed and splintered into tiny peices and hauled out in buckets.  Even after smashing the tile, the actual bottom portion of each tile remained in tact:

problems removing tiles

You can see the orange-ish tile and only a few spaces we were able to get to the actual subfloor.  Everywhere else is the bottom of the tile still stuck to the subfloor.

difficult tile removal

If you’ve ever had some problems removing floor tiles, you understand from these pictures that this was not a fun job.

We basically got it smashed down enough to expose the seams of the subfloor so that could be ripped up with the tile remnants still intact.

The two sections of the floor were different levels so one sheet of subfloor had to be removed from one half of the room.  Turns out these sheets were heavily glued, screwed, and nailed together.  More fun trying to rip them apart as they just shredded and splintered:

difficult tile removal

Due to a bow in the floor joists, there were ‘sister joists’ attached to each kitchen floor joist to level it out.  After discovering the sub floor issue we figured it was better to just rip it all out!

difficult tile removal

You can see that old hardwood floors were under the sub on one side.  Given it was only one side, they it wasn’t salvageable.