Now we're talking!

Okay, so now we've ripped out the kitchen cabinets. I should have taken a picture of the cabinets before ripping them out, but I'll have to live with this one: after cabinets and before paint.













And now here is the after of that corner with the blue paint on the walls and the white trim.


Here is a wide shot of the kitchen and really the picture does not do it justice. Considering our kitchen used to be half the size that it is now, with dark falling-apart cabinets and hideous flooring. It has really come a long way. I'm actually rather amazed at how much I've been able to do in a short amount of time. Much of this I've done in the past 2 weeks. Whew!

The really good news is that I calculated out that I can put in all new cabinets (replacing those that I've ripped out and put in two new ones above the new counter) for just over $1000. Typically, we wouldn't be able to afford this, but everything that I've read says that money put into a kitchen remodel comes back to you in resale value. Considering the condition of the kitchen before and what I hope to be the after, we should definitely recoup the costs.

A Serious Decluttering Project

This summer I was hoping to spend the month of July hanging out with friends at a reunion/retreat in New Jersey for a week, having 3 of my neices hanging out with us for a week, and hanging out with family at a cabin in the Berkshires for a week. Having done a bunch of relaxing and vegging, in August I'd be all ready to get to work at school getting my room and plans and such done and all set for September.

Well, you know what they say about the Best Laid Plans....it looks like I'm going to be decluttering like mad in preparation for selling our house and buying a new house. We've been in our house for about 14 years and dh is a bit of a pack rat, so this is not going to be easy. I'm hoping that I'll be able to rent a storage facility (I'd love to get a pod, but it seems like they are about twice the monthly rate as a self-storage), which will make moving out the excess furniture a lot easier. I've started purging through the dressers and closets and basement, but it is going to be a lot of work and I've only just begun.

Oh yeah, and I'm going to have to actually finish the kitchen (isn't that the irony of life - I get the fridge I want and real progress on the kitchen, and then we will be turning around a selling it!). The good news is that it seems like minor/moderate kitchen remodels get 100% return on the investment.

One thing is for certain - this will be an adventure! I'm still planning to do my July plans, but I will working like mad while at the house and not quite able to relax the way I like to during the summer.

It's Here!

Yeah! The new fridge is here and installed and containing and chilling food as we speak, er, type.

The guys arrived at about 8:30 and after measuring the doorways, they said that the doorway into the kitchen would have to be taken down and they would come back tomorrow to deliver the fridge. Um, I don't think so! I asked them if they could make their next delivery and then come back. They said they would be back in about 15 minutes and if the moulding and jam were down, they would deliver it, if not, they would be back tomorrow.

So I got busy -- ripping out the moulding and the jam (the jam was tricky because I had to find a cutting tool (found an old jig saw) to cut it in half on the header and then the rest came out more easily. I got it down and all set for them. They arrived back a little while later (I really don't think that they were expecting me to be able to take it down).

Finally, in came the fridge. Whee! Let me tell you - it is huge! The freezer is amazingly big. I put all the stuff that was in our old fridge - I mean, stuffed into our old fridge and it was maybe 1/5 full. :)

I'm actually thinking that we might want to move the fridge to where the dishwasher is and then slide the stove and (future) cabinet down a bit and the dishwasher will go where the fridge currently is. Because is is so big, if we moved it down the line, it would make it flow with the rest of the kitchen a little better.

This means that this week, I will be working on ripping out the remaining upper cabinets moving out the stove and dishwasher, priming and painting the wall and finish the remaining new flooring under those appliances. Then it will be all ready for my bil (who comes to town next week) to help us with the plumbing changes that will be needed.

Okay, so here is the fridge part of the kitchen without the cabinets. I've also already taken out the base cabinet next to the fridge and painted the walls behind the fridge. I've also got almost all the new flooring put down. The only place I need to finish is under the stove and dishwasher.

I was very mad at myself that apparently they tried to deliver the fridge today!! (I was told it was coming tomorrow) and I wasn't home. They left a message on the machine, but didn't call my cell - although the number is on the answering machine message. ARGH! Oh well, it will give me more time to get the fridge cleaned out and cleaned off - as you can tell, there's lots of notes on the outside.

back again

So, it sure has been a while. I'm not sure how disciplined I will be at keeping the blog updated, but I'm going to try to keep it up during the summer at least.

The current life projects include some fairly significant changes in our kitchen. Specifically, a new fridge which as required removing the cabinetry, which lead to painting the wall and installing a new floor.

This is one of the before pictures. Taking down the upper cabinets by the fridge.

ch-ch-changes!

What follows is a look into my recent renovation life. (It goes backwards in the blog - sorry about that). Over the holiday break, we started working on our kitchen. My bil, Ron offered to engineer the project and helped us with an unbelievable amount of work and materials. My mom gave us a $450 gift card for a combined Xmas present (incredibly generous of her!) to help fund the project. On that initial trip to Lowe's we used up the gift card plus about $50 on materials needed for the job. We had been torn about the cabinets and were initially planning on getting an installing them in December, the lack of money and being unable to find ready made 36" upper cabinets, made us change plans and go with another set of open shelving above the countertop. It worked out nicely since Ron had brought all the shelving with him (he had it left over from a project at his house) and I ironed on the edging and all we had to do was to purchase the tracking and the brackets. All in all, we only ended up paying about $50 out of pocket for a major overhaul for our kitchen.

We still have quite a bit to do, while one half of our kitchen looks nice and pretty in it's peaceful blue color, the rest needs to be finished. This will entail painting the cabinets (which means, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, painting), also taking them down and patching, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, painting, and painting the walls, then putting the cabinets (outfitted with new hardware) back up, replacing the countertops and putting down new flooring. The plan to do all this during the Summer of 2007.

This and That and The Other

What a week it has been. I've been getting lots done on the kitchen. Ron (and Patty) came down late Sunday evening until Tuesday morning, to work on finishing up some stuff. Ron got the electrical finished along with more sanding, plastering, cutting ceiling moulding and putting in a new door frame. After he left, I continued working on sanding, sanding and more sanding, then a couple coats of primer and then a couple of coats of new paint and pput in the outlet covers. Then I put the new shelves back up and returned things to their fairly normal state - but much prettier now. There is of course, still a whole boatload of stuff to do, the whole rest of the kitchen, but at least there is a part of the kitchen that looks nice.

The most challenging thing was dealing with a major layer of plaster dust all over everything in our house - literally. The curtains will all need to be washed, everything in all the cabinets and drawers will need to be washed. All the spice jars are covered with dust, the tupperware cabinet, the piano in the livingroom, the pictures hanging in the hallway -- EVERYTHING! At least I've got most of it under control, or at least to a semi-livable point.

Last night, Michael and the boys came up for dinner and we got the official word that Lucia and Michael will be moving to Vermont. Lucia got a job as a Senior Pastor at a UCC church there, they are excited, but we are sad. For the past 7? years, they have lived nearby (about a half-hour away) and Ahren and Sean grew up with the boys (Micah - 12 and Asher - 9) being a big part of their lives. Now to have them moving away, it will be hard. They will be about 3 hours away, which will make weekend trips doable. When I told Ahren and Sean today, they took it better than I thought they would. Sean was actually more upset than Ahren was. Ahren kept saying that it will be harder on them, because they will be leaving everyone, we are only losing them. It helped that I told the kids that when we visit we will be able to stay over night, Sean thought that was cool, and wanted me to promise him that we would get a bunk bed for him to sleep at at their house. I told him that I couldn't do that, and he seemed okay with that.

Tomorrow the plan is to get all my plans done for the month of March for school, which would really be a good thing, considering I've been really putting it off all week.