Kitchen Reno, Almost Done!

Kitchen progress has been much slower the last couple weeks. Jeremy has only had some evening and weekend time to work on it, plus we went to visit his family in Wisconsin for a four-day weekend.

And I'll confess we hired a contractor friend to put up the beadboard backsplash for us yesterday. Jeremy totally could have done it, but it was a nice treat for him to just go to work for the day and come home to find it done. For now we'll be leaving it white, but someday we might paint it. We're not sure yet.

So basically all that's left is to paint the trim around the window and the sliding door, do a bit more wall painting, put up the baseboard trim and the toe kick, hang the microwave, put the remaining two cabinet doors on and their hardware, and I think that might be it. Sounds like a long list, but it's all little finishing stuff. The vast majority of the job is done! As you can see from these pictures I took today...

What a change from how it looked before. Thanks, honey, for all your hard work!

Kitchen Reno, Part 5

Today Jeremy got one wall of upper cabinets installed and we painted the soffit. It's a green color, but you can't see too much of it in this picture. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get a bunch of stuff unpacked into those pretty, new cabinets!

Kitchen Reno, Part 4

Well Jeremy was up until 2:00 last night working on the kitchen plumbing, but still didn't have it finished. Between the two of us we went to the hardware store four times this morning to get various plumbing supplies, plus Jeremy went there two or three times last night. Wow! I think it's safe to say he'll be very glad to stay away from plumbing projects for quite some time.

We now have working plumbing so I was able to wash dishes today and run a load in the dishwasher! The flooring is complete except for installing the threshold piece into the living room. All appliances are back in their rightful spot. The main things left are hanging the upper cabinets, installing a bead board backsplash and painting the walls. Those will have to wait a little while though because Jeremy needs a rest, plus he has to work a lot this weekend.

We're feeling quite good about things though. The house is feeling a lot closer to normal and we can even have breakfast at the table tomorrow. It's been a TON of work for Jeremy, but we're both happy with how things are turning out. The kitchen already feels so much more bright and cheerful.

Here's what it looks like tonight...

Chicken Reno, Part 3

Yes, we're still working on the kitchen here. And yes, I know I wrote "Chicken Reno" in the title of this post. "Kitchen" is one of Clara's newest words, but it comes out "chicken." Cute, huh? It was making us laugh today. That and the fact that she was calling Jeremy by his name rather than calling him Daddy.

Anyways, we went to church Sunday morning, then Jeremy and a friend worked on the kitchen the rest of that day. Monday my cousin's husband graciously offered to come and help again (he was here all day Saturday too) and today Jeremy has been working on it since about 8:00 this morning and he's still going now at 10:30 PM.

These pictures were just taken about fifteen minutes ago.

When I took them Jeremy was behind the dishwasher, under the countertop, working on hooking up the dishwasher. We haven't had any plumbing in the kitchen since Saturday morning so he's determined to get that done before he goes to bed tonight. I'm hoping it doesn't take him much longer because I know he's so exhausted and really needs to go to bed.

So right now you can see that the flooring is about 85% installed. All that's left is the entryway and under the fridge. Once that's done the fridge can come back from it's temporary home in the living room.

Also all of the base cabinets and the pantry cabinet are installed and all but a small portion of the countertops are installed. The only piece left is the one that goes on that one cabinet to the left of the stove. As of this evening our stove is operational again as well. Clara was the first to break it in with scrambled eggs for dinner (she ate them, not cooked them!).

I'm proud to say that I helped a bit with the flooring installation yesterday and I put on some of the cabinet hardware today! I've even started unpacking just a tiny bit. The basic pots and pans are put away, along with silverware, towels, cookie sheets and mixing bowls.

In the top picture can you see the space to the right of the sink cabinet? The dimensions of our kitchen didn't exactly match the dimensions of the available cabinets so we ended up with about a five inch gap on either side of the sink cabinet. My clever husband made them into cubbies for cookie sheets and such. I love them already!! They don't have doors on them so I'm imaging they might be kid magnets for a season, but I also think they'll be so convenient for quick and easy storage of those big items.

I'm totally loving how it's all coming together, though for Jeremy's sake I wish it were all just done now. He's ready for some rest I think. He'll be back to work (at his non-kitchen job) tomorrow and I know he's got a busy weekend this weekend so it might be awhile before there is another significant chunk of progress to share, but I'll be sure to post pictures when there is.

Kitchen Renovation, Part 2

Well two mommies and four kids ended up not coming today, but the house was still hoppin' with activity. The men worked fast and furious on framing the expanded doorway...

If you've never been to our house it's probably hard to tell in pictures, but we widened this doorway by about two feet and it makes such a big difference. It's going to be great for traffic flow as well as for letting more light into the living room.

They also got a bunch of electrical work done, patched some low spots in the floor, insulated some holes in the walls, did some plumbing for the sink, brought in all the base cabinets and even got a good half of them level and screwed down.

And even Clara was able to get in on a bit of the action...

This is what it looks like this evening, though Jeremy is still working on it right now trying to get the dishwasher hooked up again.

More to come tomorrow, Lord willing!

Kitchen Renovation, Part 1

This week Jeremy started our big kitchen renovation!!! We're both so excited, but considering how much time I spend in the kitchen every day I'm thinking I'm probably allowed to say that I'm more excited than he is.

This is what our kitchen looked like when we moved in last October...

Clearly outdated, but in good shape, right? Not exactly. Somewhere along the way a previous owner had done some hokey rearranging of cabinets to accommodate a dishwasher. A couple of the drawer frames were broken so the drawers would tip and fall out when you opened them. A few of the doors wouldn't stay closed. One even had velcro at the top to try and keep it closed! And that brick backsplash...yeah, it's faux brick and it had a chunk missing.

I was very thankful for a large kitchen, and it definitely worked well enough for us, but I was looking forward to the day we'd be able to update it, and that day has come!

This was the kitchen yesterday afternoon...

Wednesday after dinner Jeremy removed all the upper cabinets. And yes, that's a big whole in the wall. The contractor was here yesterday replacing our sliding doors.

This is what the kitchen looked like this morning...

Jeremy was excited to take a saw to the awful countertops.

For many months we have talked about widening the doorway from the living room to the kitchen because it's kind of a pinch point. It was our plan to do this whenever we renovated the kitchen. Then a few days ago Jeremy was feeling like it was too much to take on right now so he cancelled that plan. Well, you can see that tonight he decided it just had to be done and that poor wall didn't stand a chance.

And this is our kitchen as of about twenty minutes ago...

Tomorrow we've got some family coming to help for the day, along with their wives and kids. We'll have eight adults here and eight kids under age four. Should be wild and crazy, but hopefully productive and safe as well. The men are hoping to get the flooring down and the base cabinets and countertops installed. I'll take pictures!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Clara is deep in the throes of the copycat stage of toddlerhood.

This is what I found her doing the other day after I had finished nursing Lola.

Yep, she's nursing her baby. With her shirt lifted and everything.

And she did this with no prompting from us. Hilarious!