Did the contractors need to get access from the basement to move any of the lines or could they do it all in the kitchen? My basement is finished so any work in my kitchen would need to be done from above, which probably means ripping up the floor in spots.
Heh, you know you're not from California when...
No one has basements in Cali, this is earthquake country over here! In California, especially Southern Cali, the old way of doing pipes and gas lines was to run it through the concrete floor slab. This was kind of a pain to deal with since the gas stove had to be relocated from that little peninsula and moved to the wall. My contractor had to bust up the floor slab in two places, one where the gas line came out of the floor for the stove -- to seal the line and fill concrete in -- and the other to junction the gas line to the position where the stove is now.
For electrical it would be run through the attic down to the walls, but also now-a-days most things get ran through the attic rather than the floor slab.
Lucky for us, the previous owners updated and replaced the water pipes so all we had to deal with was the gas line in the floor.
My house is coming up on 100 years old (I also have a detached garage but my laundry room is in the basement) and the last time the kitchen was updated was before we moved in 16+ years ago. It looks OK-ish but the cheap home depot laminated cabinets are peeling all over the place. We also renovated the rest of the first floor about 6 years ago and by opening it up we lost a TON of cabinet spaced/storage. We currently have nowhere to store food in the kitchen - the pantry (if you can even call it that) is in the basement, which is a pain.
After seeing what you did I'm going to really explore doing something in my house soon - it makes a huge difference.
100 y/o! Yeah, you are due for some updates.
The kitchen was our priority for reno's, it's the most expensive task out of what we want to do to the place. We eventually want to re-do the bathrooms, but the kitchen was really important given that the original was so tiny with not much storage and counter space. it really does make a huge difference once it's done since the kitchen is constantly in use for our family.
Am I the only one that hates open floor plans? The "great room" concept works when you have no air conditioning and need air flow, but all it means is zero privacy and everything is loud in a modern home.
I'm partial to both. But I think our house has a good compromise between the two. Our kitchen and dining area is opened, but the living room is confined from them. We have a semi wall dividing the kitchen area from the living room (it's really just a threshold opening with pocket doors in the wall if we wanted to really close it off), and a side hallway that leads to the 'bedroom wing' of the house.
For our reno's we actually put up a wall, rather than taking 'em down. We filled in that small side doorway to the kitchen, which lead to the front door area of the house, so now when you walk in you have to actually make your way through the living room to access the kitchen. Which is fine, it keeps the noise from the kitchen/living room contained, and it gave us more counter space in the kitchen.
The house feels a bit more open than normal, but without having 1 giant great room we have 2 spaces that keeps the layout semi-open.