95% done!

Painting is, for the most part, done (other than trim, blech). Here are some pics of the kitchen as it is now!

And one from my favorite vantage point of the front door . . .

We added a new sitting area where the kitchen table used to be:

And, believe it or not, (these pictures do NOT do it justice!) one of my favorite new spaces is the new bathroom!

We have had a few guests already (more to come, I hope!). One lovely comment was "your house is like a sunrise". Jeremy asked me if I had picked island colors intentionally (no!). Dan and Lane came by and almost kept driving because they didn't recognize the house!

Thanks for coming along for the ride - I may post final pics once we have new furniture and all bits and pieces done.

Cheers!

Mid-February update

Whew! We are closing in on it, but the last bits are painful. This is where I want the night fairies to come in and do it all "POOF!" and drop a bag of money here while they are at it . . .

Todd had his last day today, and Pete Chandler came in to stain the beam. Closing in on it all but still no firm date for the party.

Quick update - floors were refinished last week, Todd installed the cabinet backs and the bartop, and we purchased a paint sprayer when we realized just how much painting there is to do. Maybe a bad purchase, but the hours spent covering with plastic are much mitigated with the quickness of application. Kitchen and bathroom/mudroom were primed in about an hour total, (2 coats) after probably 4 hours of taping and masking.

This past weekend, Jeremy and I tented the kitchen and sprayed it a gorgeous, happy yellowy color called Dahlia. (Maddie said to me this morning, "Mommy, is doesn't look like winter in here; it looks like summer!" And this on a grey, overcast day . . . YES!!!) He has been working like a fiend perfecting his mortar technique putting up the backsplash. In between all this (and yes, he is still putting in 60 hours a week at the office) he is sanding and varnishing the bartop to build up the finish. Pic to the left is Jeremy priming.

This is Jeremy working on tile. You can see the shiny bartop and the indications that this is still a work in progress (light is bag wrapped for ceiling painting)

Last one - the cooktop area. There will be set of straight, bullnosed pieces over this pattern. Doesn't Jeremy do good work?

BAR is shaped!

Wood is so gorgeous . . . I am so happy we are going with as much as we are. Evokes the boat, perhaps . . . and so does the shape of this bar! (A friend told me it looked like a sail - Todd calls it the guitar pick!) This pic to the left is a birds' eye view, taken from the stairs, of the whole kitchen (basically). You might be able to see some of the hardware on the cabinets that Jeremy is installing.

This next one is a close up of the bar itself. Imagine it stained dark (almost to match the chairs) and finished with a high gloss. Now imagine yourself sitting at it, drink reflecting in the bar top . . . and me handing over appetizers from the kitchen part! The bar is mahogany; the butcher block on the prep part of the island is rock maple (oiled about an hour ago).

It's getting closer!

Mid-January update

I guess it's later than "mid" January, and that's a relatively boring title for what seems to me to be an exciting post! Jeremy and Todd have been working feverishly on the house. Todd is a madman on stilts as he works to get the drywall mudded and ready for sanding, and Jeremy did a weekend's worth of work in a day yesterday by hooking up/installing the range hood, the instahot, and the soap dispenser, plus a couple of lights in the mudroom. We have not been without upsets, though, chief among them a mysterious illness that floored Jeremy and me for 3 days last week (hopefully Todd does not have it). The granite is 97% great, although our dealings with C-Stone Counters management leaves much to be desired and they will NOT get any recommendations from us. So . . . pictures, anyone?

First of all, what the kitchen looks like this morning from the front door.

Yes, we have some more work to do. We decided on and ordered pulls and knobs yesterday, and toady's missions include a trip to Lowe's to bring home yet more paint chips. Todd is hoping to get the drywall done early this week, and then he'll get to the bar top.

2. A picture of Todd. He is indeed tall, but he's 18" taller in this snap because he is on stilts.

3. I also have to post a picture of the cooktop and hood combo. Both appliances were on the difficult side to source, and I am happy to say that both (so far!) seem to be well worth the hassle. The cooktop (a Caldera) is 36" wide, big enough for 5 good-size pots on the burners all at once, and room for 2 cooks to work in peace at the same time (tested!). The hood (Sirius) was used for the first time yesterday on canadian bacon in the morning and pasta in the evening - quiet and efficient, as promised. Note the tile piles on the left of the cooktop - our eventual backsplash, or some ideas of what we'll use.

Other news is that we moved the temporary kitchen out of the "old" family room and put in the eating table. (we don't need it anymore!) The room is plenty big enough for such a set up, and we ate dinner in there last night with cousin James and his girlfriend Eliza - fire roaring and all. Nice inauguration! So we are moving right along. I'll keep everyone posted as to the party date, but I am hoping we can have a birthday bash for Jeremy along with a house-warming party.

More stone pictures

And it is installed. I must say, it is a bit unfair - Jeremy is working in the crawl space gluing plumbing pipes together and I am sitting here drooling over pictures of our new granite. The first picture is right to the left of the cooktop (like the cooktop? Tomorrow I get to cook on it! Maddie has requested Annie's Mac and Cheese . . .) and is my favorite piece of the stone. The second pic shows the main run along the short side of the "l" - the long side is where the fridge and sink are. As you can see, we still have priming and paint to tackle, as well as decide on cabinet pulls. We'll let you know when the party is!

GRANITE UPDATE!!!

Whoohoo! I came home this morning to find granite being installed! These are very initial pictures, but you can start to see what the final will look like! Please ignore the mess . . . I'll post more later tonight! Can anyone tell I am excited?

first post in 2008!

I have been remiss in posting, but it isn't because nothing has happened. The last week has been a busy one!

The kitchen at the end of 2007 looked like this:

Jeremy spent the last Saturday in December installing the wall oven and the microwave, and Todd worked on drywall mudding and under the house joist stuff. Come January 1, the focus shifted slightly to the new space (no, we aren't adding anything to the house - just playing with walls! So perhaps it isn't a new space . . . but it feels like one!) Jeremy spent the day at Lowes buying parts for the shower, while Todd began framing what will become our full bath downstairs and a long-anticipated and needed mudroom!

And now, after working on framing and setting cabinets, we need to make a decision on what the bar part will look like. We have decided on the wood . . . but here is out latest idea, and unless we get brainstorms that involve cardboard mockups in the middle of the night, this will serve as the template! Note, please, that this is taken from the SAME spot by the front door as the initial picture of wall and clock . . . what a difference! PS. If you click on a picture, a bigger one comes up so you can see stuff better.

This week? Granite on Thursday and gas hookup on Friday. Perhaps I will post pictures of a gang of us working in the kitchen next week!