Monday, July 30, 2012

Kitchen Remodel; Part 3

The kitchen is done!!!! ...mostly

It's as good as done anyway. Look at some pictures of it and then I'll tell you what's not done. :)

What you see when you walk in. Tadaaaaa!
This baker's rack is a lifesaver. It's extra counter and storage space without eating into the kitchen. Also, its a place to keep the wine. ;)
Ah, the shiny appliances! Please also note that the wall behind the fridge is actually part of the pantry. It goes into infinity, but its not usable space since neither of us are Gumby. We decided to treat is as a wall and paint it blue to tie both sides of the kitchen together a little better
My lovely lovely drawer organizers and new flatwear. (The flatwear was actually a wedding gift, but I didn't want to put it in the drawers while they were still gross)
WE HAVE A CEILING FAAAAAAN!!!!!

"Whaaaat?", you say? "This is incomplete?" you say?

Yeah.

*sad face*

Here's what's missing...

* A window covering - We bought blinds at Home Depot, but they are too long and we need to take about half of the slats out before we can hang it. I've asked my husband to do it before he leaves me for four days, so I can close the kitchen blinds while he's gone. (It annoys me that the neighbors can see straight into my kitchen all the time). He's just going to put them up at their current length and I MAAAAY attempt to remove the slats while he's gone.

* Pretty knobs and handles on the cabinets and drawers - We bought these too. They're in bags, waiting to be installed. They only haven't been because we've been busy. They were supposed to go up yesterday, but we ended up having a really busy day, so no knobs for me...yet.

* Switch plates - We have these too... and a couple of them are even up...but the extra half inch of wall made putting them up a slightly more complicated task than we anticipated. I think we ran out of bolts of some kind? I don't know. Ask my husband. He was doing it. *shrug*

And then we're done... Done done, like, for realsies.

And now to close, here is a picture of our dog, Panda, helping me put everything away in the kitchen.




Monday, July 23, 2012

Kitchen Remodel; Part 2

I feel a little more like writing today, so here's a little background and some other stuff you might like to know about our kitchen/house.

In September 2010 we bought our little townhouse with "good bones" and we've spent the last year and a half slowly making improvements one room at a time.

First my husband cleaned, repainted and installed new fixtures in our master bathroom. It went from gross to not gross in a period of 2 days. I wanted to do a different room first, but he insisted - since I refused to shower in the master bath because of the grossness. I appreciated it. There are only so many mornings in November someone can walk to the downstairs bath barefoot on cold laminate when they'd rather be in bed to begin with. ;)

Next we tackled the living room, which was a month long process of painting and patching and waiting for carpet, all the while using the dining room as a living room, before finally buying a new couch and curtains.

My husband surprised me somewhere in there by taking a day off work to repaint the downstairs bath.

Then we did the patio. This one's an ongoing process. Plants die. Pots break. I like to move things around.

Then we revamped the 2nd bedroom. It needed paint and some major organization.

Then we had the dining room repainted - couldn't do this one ourselves, stupid 20 ft ceilings - and my hubs and his dad magically put up a new chandelier. It's a whole new room.

* * * * *

Which brings us up to now. We are remodeling the kitchen. In case you didn't see this, which I posted less than a week ago.

My aunts, uncles and grandparents all pitched in and got us this amazing set of Frigidaire appliances as a wedding gift last August. HOLY AMAZINGNESS!!!! Of course, I wanted to install them all right away, but I was told we needed to wait until we remodeled the kitchen to put in the microwave and dishwasher since we'd be repainting the cabinets and installing new countertops. So two of these four beautiful appliances sat in their boxes in the garage for 11 months while we figured out the best time to remodel the kitchen. The other two (fridge and range) we started using right away - and they were gloooorious.

Two weeks ago we finally started to empty out the kitchen to get ready for the remodel. Everything was put in boxes and stored in the dining room and living room, where it will stay probably until Thursday. : /
Then my husband went around and took off all of the cabinet doors while I started scrubbing down all of the shelves to prep them for painting. This took far too long. Tim also decided to tackle the fluorescent light box on the ceiling and take off a small chunk of old countertop.

Goodbye bizzarro 1975 light box. Love, A & T
The next weekend (last weekend) sh*t blew up. My in-laws came up and the demolition/reconstruction project officially began. Hubs and his dad tore out the existing sink, composite countertops, the old wobbly microwave, and old dishwasher while my MIL and I were down in the garage cleaning and repainting all 1,000 cabinet doors and drawers - no, we don't really have 1,000 cabinet doors. 

The biggest projects for the weekend were, of course, tackled by my husband and his dad. They had to cut the shiny new butcherblock countertops to fit our little kitchen, then fit the new sink - and cut a giant hole for said sink - then reconnect all the plumbing, pull out the old heavy slimey microwave and the temperamental dishwasher. They also took down the entire old weird/gross light fixture and replaced it with a ceiling fan, which will be SO fantastic when we're cooking and trying to keep the smoke alarms from going off (because they're too close to the kitchen).
Then Tim and his dad put in the shiny new microwave and dishwasher before the in-laws hit the road last Sunday afternoon.

This weekend the adventures continued sans in-laws. It was time to paint and tile.

Saturday was just painting - inside and outside all of the shelves and cabinets. It took all day and was exhausting. Especially the climbing into the pantry part. Our pantry wraps around the fridge. It's weird, I know. We wanted to make sure we were doing it "right", so I had to climb inside to paint the deepest depths of the pantry even though no one will ever see or appreciate my work.

Sunday was tiling for me and more painting for Tim. Instead of using traditional adhesive to stick the tiles to the wall, we used simplemat. Tim found it on the interwebs and it ended up being my savior for the weekend.  It's peal and stick with tiling - completely baffling and completely amazing.
The killer part of installing tile was the grout. I think I hate grout. It's my nemesis. Timing it so that I did a big enough chunk to be worthwhile, but small enough that I could wipe off the excess before it dried too much was brutal and exhausting. It took me between 2 and 3 hours just to grout the backsplash. My arms/shoulders were crying.

That was the last thing we did yesterday - until I ran up to the kitchen to put up one of the cabinet doors just for kicks. It was already 11:30pm at this point, so I wasn't about to put up all the doors, but I liked the idea of putting up one. So, I did. :)

The next four days we'll be finishing and cleaning the kitchen. My birthday's on Friday, so we're having some of my family over to see the kitchen and celebrate my existence. : P

So, we have to be done.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

Kitchen Remodel; Part 1

I don't really feel like writing much, so here are some pictures and captions of our kitchen remodel in progress...

This is what the kitchen looked like before we even bought the place. We had LOVELY composite countertops, mismatched backsplash, and one butcherblock counter, which they lovingly used as a cutting board. No fridge. Range without working display. Microwave that rocks gently when you push the button to open. High quality ceramic sink that broke every glass that so much as fell over. Ohyeah, and we hope you have a fridge... 

Then my husband and his dad came in and ripped everything out. 

And then they did manly things like cutting a new hole for the sink...

Then they had to see how it looked/fit, so they tested it out. PERFECT!

It's a mess, but by the end of the day we had new countertops, sink, faucet, dishwasher, microwave and ceiling fan, which you can't see. 
Last night we picked out the backsplash tiles and tomorrow we're going to Lowe's to pick them up - yes, one store actually had 26 sq feet of the same backsplash tile IN STOCK. It was like Christmas.

This weekend we're finishing it all - repainting the cabinets, walls/ceiling, sealing the countertops, installing cabinet hardware, lining all the shelves and drawers.

We need to do something about the window covering...bleeeeeeh. Still not sure what the plan is there, but we'll get to it. No big.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Mini Rant; Why Emoticons Are Good


I recently read a blog by someone who said they don't believe in emoticons. Something about the English language having enough illustrative capacity. Blah blah blah. At first I thought she was kind of right, but can I just say really quickly that after thinking about this a little bit, I've decided that this is bunk. As a student of communication I know how important non-verbals are. If you can't here the tone in my voice or see my expression or posture, how will you know my full meaning? I have therefore decided to continue the use of emoticons because that little winky face will help you to better understand me. If I wouldn't say to your face, "This is meant in a joking manner", then I sure as sh*t am not going to type it out for you. Figure it out with my emoticons, dammit.

Have a nice day.

:D

Monday, July 2, 2012

Surprise!

After a fun and hectic weekend, this morning I hugged my husband goodbye and said "I wish we had just one more day of weekend."
He replied with something like,"Just get through today and tomorrow and then you'll have your weekend."

I didn't say anything, but I had no idea what he was talking about.

Only took me until 10am to figure it out, but now it feels like the 4th is a surprise holiday! I'm pretty sure I was subconsciously planning to come into work on Wednesday.

I feel so much better now.