The Oven

Much to the relief of the kids, we finally found the deal that we've been looking for on the oven. We're going to go ahead with single convection oven, then use a trim kit to "build in" a separate microwave.

It's just a coincidence that we found the deal on a Bosh oven. That's the same brand as the dishwasher and cooktop (and washer/dryer, but they're in the laundry room and really don't count). So now we'll be looking for a Bosch microwave. That way when we sell the house in 50 years we can advertise that it's all antique Bosh appliances.

We did have a panic moment last night when we measured the cabinet and then the oven. (Little late now that we paid for the oven!!!) The oven is bigger than the pre-cut opening but according to our contractor it will be fine. The cabinet is made for 3 different sized ovens and to make bigger ones fit you have to do a little cutting.

I hate painting ceilings...

...or at least white ones.

I painted Katie's ceiling with a blue sky and clouds (including a heart one over where I thought she'd want her bed) before we moved into the house. She's always loved it.

Before Charlie was born, I painted an evening sky on his ceiling. There's a moon, the Little Dipper and a shooting star.

But when we had to touch up the ceiling on Sunday in the kitchen, it was miserable. We tried turning out the lights and I tried to direct Ken (with his wonderfully long arms) where to paint. I finally just grabbed his arm and used it like a paint brush extension!

Still, I hope we don't need to do any more touch-ups.

Knobs and pulls

I found a great place to buy the cabinet pulls and knobs on the web. It's called Cool Knobs and Pulls. We got our order yesterday and these are nice, heavy pulls for a cheaper than Home Depot price.



We ordered a couple long handles for the pantry, a lot of 4" pulls for the majority of the cabinets and 10 T-shaped knobs for the small doors. Can't wait to see them on the cabinets!

Sink and Faucet

Monday I had to rush out to get the faucet before the templating was done. This is the what we ended up with more or less. The sink actually has more angles instead of the curves, but does have one really deep side that will be nice for the big pans.

Day 47--It's the waiting game now

All the cabinets are in and the counters have been templated. Now it's time to wait... patiently... HA!!! I'll wait but I don't have to be patient!

Day 46--The last cabinet

This is the one detail we added on after we started. This little bookshelf will add a neat detail to our island.

The shelves are closer together than I expected, but that can be good. I won't be as tempted to put all of my cookbooks on there and clutter it up.

After all, we need a place for "do-dad's" and "what-you-ma-call-it's". :-)

Day 42

Part of the refrigerator cabinet was installed. It made for an interesting little "low bridge" for Ken over the weekend.

The side panel is missing so that's being shipped now, but until the floors are done and we can move the fridge back it doesn't really matter.

Day 41--The Coronation begins!

I know, bad joke. But the crown molding is very cool. In the middle is a little rope detail.

It changes our somewhat plain cabinets into nice classic cabinets.

Day 40--The kitchen starts to take shape

Every day it's like coming home to Christmas! What new "presents" are under the tree? Of course we're paying for these presents so it' not quite a good as Santa's presents.

We're now getting a feel for what our new kitchen is going to be like. After using our little "kitchenette" for over a month now, this is going to be very pampering.

A few of my favorite things

Thanks to a friend mentioning the Sound of Music last week, "A Few of My Favorite Things" has been floating through my head. So, here's a few of my favorite cabinet things...

There will be 2 display cabinets, one on each side of the window. With an interior light, glass shelves and glass doors, they will be a fun place to keep a couple of pretty things.

Even though Ken is too tall for his own good, he hates using those long arms down low and somehow actually having to crawl into the cabinet to get to the far corner is just creepy to me, so we usually don't use the corner cabinets too much. With this lazy susan we'll get great storage!

These shelves are actually drawers. So no more crawling on the floor to get to the back. The down side is that I guess I'll actually have to learn to stack my pots and pans. In my old cabinets I stacked them and shut the door really quick. If I leaned against the door they would stop shifting in a minute...and even stay in the cabinet!

Last, but far from least, is the trash can cabinet. No more canned goods falling into the trash or the can sitting out looking just beautiful. The second can is perfect for recyclables too. I had the huge recycle bin in the kitchen so now I'll have the best of both worlds. (Sorry, that's Hannah Montana--wrong musical reference!)

Day 39--If you liked the tops, you'll love the bottoms...hehehe...

It's really beginning to take shape. The kids (including Ken and me!) are having fun discovering cool things about the cabinets and figuring where all the stuff in the dinning room will go.

As I was going out to the deck to grill, I could see just how easy that will be with all the cabinets in too. We used to have to walk around the end of our cabinets to get out the door. Now it'll be a straight shoot.

Day 38--Here they come!

This was the big day where the cabinets start going in. They are maple, but have a natural cherry color.

Plus the area at the top of the cabinets has just enough space for our above cabinet lighting. Ken had wanted to have some of the cabinets go to the ceiling, but now agrees that it might have looked too busy.

It's a Rorschach Inkblot Test!

So what do you see? A bridge? Or the classic profile of a lady?

I see $$$. Yep. We have mold on our kitchen ceiling from the floor in the kid's bath. Our contractor is going to tear it out, clean it up and put up new drywall. But we all know what that means...more $$$. :-)

Day 35

Our first "dead" day. No major work happening today, just letting the floors cure. Our contractor is catching up on some small jobs for other clients, so even he's not there.

But that will all change on Monday. The cabinets start going in!!! Ken (who is much worse about not opening Christmas presents early than I am) started peeking into the boxes last night. We saw one of the display cabinets that are going above the sink and they are so cool.

The counters are going to be templated the following Monday, the 21st. Shortly after that we'll be able to view the granite before they cut it (we especially want to do this since we changed the color) and set the install date. Some where about then I'll begin to have a functional kitchen back, even if the work isn't all done.

...and I'm now realizing that probably won't be until September. Sigh.

How to make a PBJ in 21 easy steps

1. Stretch into the butler's pantry to retrieve the bread without stepping on the stained floor.

2. Look for a clean, open area to make the sandwich.

3. Settle for an open area with a paper towel on top of it.

4. Realize that the peanut butter is in the butler's pantry--at the far end.

5. Have hubby stretch to reach peanut butter.

6. Grab hubby to keep him from falling on the stained floor. (This is a PG blog--I grabbed his waist! And if he had fallen on his face on the floor, would that have counted as walking on the floor???)

7. Put peanut butter on bread.

8. Look around for THE lid to the container that goes with the new lunchbox for Katie.

9. Give up looking for THE lid and use another Rubbermaid container and lid.

10. Gather lunchbox, container, few other goodies for her lunch, table knife, door keys AND garage remote while telling hubby that I'm going outside to the fridge.

11. Close front door quickly to keep the moth invasion outside.

12. Open garage and fumble for the garage light.

13. Go back into the house, quickly close the door and try turning on the laundry room light.

14. Cuss because the laundry room light has burnt out since the last time I made the trip.

15. Ignore hubby while he LHAO at you being in the dark. (The plastic covered doorway just doesn't do enough to muffle his laughter!)

16. Find a place on the new washer to set down everything in your hands.

17. Find the grape jelly in the fridge and say to heck with it--leave the fridge door open for a light source.

18. Unpack the half-made sandwich to add the jelly. You know how well THAT works with peanut butter.

19. Finish sandwich and pack it away.

20. Close fridge, leave house, turn off garage light so it doesn't burn out, go out of garage--making sure to close the garage door behind you.

21. Walk back into the front door and hit hubby with a Time magazine for laughing so hard.

Now, was that so bad???

Day 33--DO NOT ENTER!!!

This is the real crunch time. No more sneaking across the kitchen floor tonight...or tomorrow...or how long???

But I can steal a peek around the corner and see that the results are worth waiting for!

I found my kitchen!

I came home to find my kitchen--in my garage! The cabinets are still in the boxes, so it's kind of like having presents under the Chritmas tree. I want to peek inside the boxes, but I know better.

Oh, and it's a good thing we weren't expecting to park in the garage!

Day 32--No more holes in the floor

Our floor guy has made wonderful progress. The floor is whole and it has been sanded. Next comes the stain.

Granite Do Over!

We struggled so hard trying to get a paint to match the granite we picked out. It had a green tint and the green colors just weren't what we wanted. So Ken finally suggested the most common sense thing to do--change the granite. Fortunately since it hasn't actually been ordered and the new one we picked is the same price it was no big deal.

This one has smaller specs of silver, no bigger than 1". It does have a definite blue tint, but I'm sure that in different light it will change. We've seen the green version of this installed at Lowe's and it's beautiful.

The view that's been hidding from us

We pulled down the faux wood blinds to find this great view. I don't think the blinds are going back up, but we do need to do something. Privacy isn't a problem--even in winter you can't see into the houses across the woods--but the windows will just look unfinished without something.

Hmm... maybe something with a hint of red to play off those cool lights.

By the way, this means another addition to what was formally known as our budget!

The island lights

The lights for the island came in late last week. These are so cool! They are hand-blown, hand-painted glass that look decorative both when on and off. The specs are silver, so they'll fit in wonderfully with our appliances.

Day 31

The hole in our floor is quickly filling in. He should be sanding it tomorrow. I can still sneak through to the butler's pantry for another day or so, but then we will have to be off the floor for over 24 hours. (Click on the picture to be able to see it better and to see our paint color.)

The cool thing is that we're getting the flush wood floor vents. No more stubbed toes!

Day 30--Reality hits

Our floor guy FINALLY called Sunday night after 9 to confirm that yes, he would be there Monday. That's when reality hit--hard.

The first thing he'll do is tape off the kitchen and the butler's pantry. Ken is gone to a family reunion with Katie so I had to call my neighbors for help moving the table. Then I took a long look at every thing that will be "behind the curtain."

To get to my fridge and laundry I'll go out my front door and in through the garage. Sure hope it doesn't rain tonight like they're forecasting.

Also no more sink to wash dishes in. Oh, and all the dishes are in the area we're taping off. We have more, but they're in the basement and that's taped off too.

I quickly moved the essentials--the coffeepot and microwave. And now I realize that I forgot the coffee grinder. Hmm... no coffee for a week? NO WAY!!! I'll be stopping by the store tonight for some ground coffee.

There is good news though. I finally have an excuse to not cook for a week! :-)

Day 29--We did it!

We got the walls primed and painted, along with most of the ceiling! Oh, is my body tired!

In preparation for the floor work, we had to move the fridge to the laundry room. It's oh so cozy now.

Day 28--Prime Time!!!

We're oh so tired, but we got a lot done today. The border is gone, the floor boards in the garage to be painted white and entired kitchen has been primed. Since it's a tinted primer we're getting a sneak peak at what it will be like when we're done tomorrow. It's definitely more colorful now!

Day 24--We have walls!

Just as I was getting used to living without drywall, it's going back in. But with drywall comes taping and mudding, which brings lots and lots of dust.

Now that's something we haven't seen in, oh well, two days? :-)

So how does a family live without a kitchen?

Easy! You just used the butler's pantry! (Complete with dirty dishes!)

Really though, we hadn't put this space to much good use before but now we are. You can kind of see how I ran an extension cord from one side to the other to plug in the coffee and microwave. The electrian thought that was a hoot.

The funny thing is that this tiny little "kitchenette" is bigger than our apartment's kitchen!

As to everything else? Just don't look in the dining room if you visit!