In my professional world, a Program is the superset of many related Projects. We even have the role of Program Manager to oversee the long term progress of a Program that can span multiple teams and organizations to ensure something gets done. Over the past year, the big Program for me has been a kitchen refresh. I am told it is not a remodel as we did not take it down to bare studs, but I promise you the distinction does not seem to be much cheaper.
Our kitchen is a standard issue upper middle class 1990’s style kitchen with a desk to run the household and decent quality maple cabinets. It has been very functional for us in the time we have lived here, but we wanted to modernize it for our own use and ultimately resale of the house. To keep this within reasonable cost and to allow me to be industrious, I have opted to some of the work myself. The downside is this has taken a full year to do, but the upside is we have kept a functional kitchen with the exception of a few days here and there when either stoves were being moved or the kitchen was sealed off for painting.
Thinking through over the past year what the kitchen’s list of refresh projects look like:
- Removal of the desk portion of the cabinet and counter
- Replace Island Range (sizing limitations meant we went a different route)
- Custom Made Wine Fridge Cabinet
- Double Oven & Cook Top Purchase
- Cabinet Measuring and Ordering
- Installation of 220 for Double Oven (outsourced)
- Double Oven Cabinet Cutting to Size
- Cabinet Installation
- Island Expansion with Custom Cabinets
- Island Electrical
- New Cabinet Hardware
- New Counters (outsourced)
- Building of Cabinet Uppers to Ceiling
- Cabinet Painting (outsourced)
- New Kitchen Lighting
- Wall Patching & Repaint the Kitchen Walls
- Kitchen Wallpaper
- Swap out Almond Electrical
- Repair and Repaint Ceiling (outsourced)