I have been so busy lately that most of the time spent is on work (duh..that takes up 10 hours/day) and then housework. Anyway, here's a belated post about my completed kitchen.
We engaged Intech Kitchen (previously Artak Kitchen) back in December 2014 but due to our busy schedule, the move, and CNY our kitchen was only 100% completed mid March.
I initially wanted quartz top with 3G cabinets but after dropping by their showroom, we realized that the combination of tiles and melamine were equally nice. So, we decided to go ahead with concrete top with black tiles and melamine cabinets.
Let me walk you through my kitchen renovation journey. (p/s: I literally sat there to supervise the entire process). There were 3 sections involved:
a) The concrete and framework
b) Installation of cabinets
c) Installation of hob and hood
Here's the picture of our initially bare kitchen.
The concrete experts took 5 days to complete their portion of work. The work include removing tiles on the walls to insert steel bars, erecting concrete for the kitchen top and laying of tiles. This work was carried out by 2 men (brothers) who had been in the industry for 20-30 years.
I never knew hacking through tiles is such a tedious process!
Once the hacking was done, the men began laying bricks at each end to form the foundation. Once the foundation has dried, the men prepared the framework for the kitchen top and laid metal bars on the framework. The next process was pouring cement on the framework and letting them dry.
Once the concrete top has dried, the men began to arrange tiles on the surface and worked on the cement for the bottom part of the cabinet. The next day, when the cement has dried, he placed arranged the white tiles along the U-shaped kitchen. Note that these men were very meticulous, they measured several times to ensure accuracy of their work.
Here's the completed kitchen frame. The men did a fantastic job!
There was a gap of a month (due to CNY) before our kitchen cabinets were installed.
On the 6th of March, the cabinet installers came to install our cabinets. The process took about 5 hours. I thought it was a simple process, but I was wrong. They had to measure and cut the wood to ensure proper fit on the concrete frame. They also installed two T5 lighting.
The following week, the installer came to install our hood and hob. This was supposed to be a simple job but because our exhaust hole was 7 inches in diameter, they did not have the coring tool to make the hole. They only had the one with 6 inches. So instead of coring, the poor man had to hack through our 5 inches thick reinforced concrete wall. He had to change 2 bits in process because he broke 1.
To cut the story short, once the hole was made they installed the exhaust, followed by our Fotile hood and the hob.
May I present to you my kitchen:)
You can get more kitchen design ideas from Intech Kitchen's blog at: http://www.artakkitchen.com/
Jeff/Jessica will be able to help you achieve your dream kitchen at a reasonable price.
