Slowly, but Surely

Baking again!

It feels like we have been in remodel mode forever, but in actuality it has only been about 2 1/2 months.  We are finishing up about when I thought we would.  All that is left for the construction guys is an above the sink light, some kick plate and a few drawer adjustments. On our side, there is a lot of touch up painting to do.  Yay.

We made a huge dent in the mess over the weekend.  Most of the kitchen has been put back together. This means that nearly all of the boxes are off of the spare bed.  We even managed to move the kitchen table and chairs back into the kitchen.

This was not done without pain and about 127 trips to Lowes, Menards and Bed, Bath and Beyond. It maybe would have been easier to actually move.  Believe it or not, I am tired of shopping. (Gasp)

So many trips to the store.

My husband cut nearly all of the shelf liner for the entire kitchen.  He got to use his favorite tool; the box cutter.  It took an entire day. We have a lot of shelves. In fact, I have empty shelves.  I even brought stuff up from the basement and I still have empty or nearly empty shelves.  I may be able to fill them if I work at it.  I will try.

I got the urge to bake, so I broke in the new stove.  First up; Hot Milk Cake (yum).  I am happy to report that all is well.

Here are a few pics to show you our progress.  I hope to follow up within the next few weeks as soon as we have some accessories on the walls and the living room is complete.  I will soon have time to work on some art for the bath, so that should be up for viewing soon.

This is pretty much how the kitchen looked all weekend.  It was like Chinese food.  We kept eating away at it, but it always stayed the same.  Weird.  

This is my favorite part.  Actual work space.  Sigh. I already had all of this.  I love red.

When I got home from work today, this is what I saw.  I have yet to hear the story behind it.

Kitchen table.  In the kitchen.

Actually, I kind of love the violet here.  And that is a kick-ass paper towel holder.  Love it.

Finally.  A stove that is working.  I missed that.  And I hate to cook!

Pay No Attention to that Wrinkle Behind the Curtains

I had to pull the trigger on something for the living room and it wound up being the curtains.  I hate buying them, but it had to be done.

Unfortunately, the only ones I liked were 'online only' which means I had to order and hope for the best.  I got lucky.

I love the print.  I love the colors.  And...they go!  You know what I mean.  They don't match, they go.

All was roses until I saw the following:

DO NOT IRON!?! (I love the misplaced comma)

Seriously?  We all know how curtain panels come:

And we ALL know this is how they look when you unpack them:

And:

How the heck was I going to 'unwrinkle' the NO IRON curtains?  I got a lot of suggestions.  I went with my gut and decided to do this:

Don't tell the Polyester Police, but I ironed those suckers.  It took me nearly 2 hours to do four panels. That's because I did it on the Poly setting with high steam through the towel.  Yup.  My arm was singing the Ave Maria when I was done, but...

Voila!  No wrinkles.

Now don't say that you didn't learn something here.  Call this Curtain De-Wrinkling 102.

Here's a sneak peak of what went on today:

So excited.

The Race to the Finish

Whoa!  Things are racing to the end of our big project.  It has been two months since we started and I am thinking that we should be done in the next week or two.

New fridge.

Right now we are in the process of having all of the new trim and doors painted.  Of course, that means we need to be completely caught up on the wall painting.  We have just a tad left to do and then a few random spots where the new trim didn't quite match up to the old paint lines.

We have countertops!  They are basically still covered with cardboard, but they are there.

We have a sink and faucet and they WORK!  No more hauling the dishes down to the basement for washing.  The dishwasher is in, but not wired yet.  No garbage disposal.  Next week.

We have our new appliances!  The fridge is in the middle of the eating part of the kitchen and the micro/hood is in the living room. Isn't everybody's?  The stove will be here next week as there was a bit of a glitch with that.  Oops.

We have backsplash!  So pretty.  They will grout in the next couple of days.

The micro/hood is sitting in the living by some cool equipment.

We have been told that we can load up the cabinets, but since I will be gone on an Animal Kingdom adventure all weekend, I doubt if we will do it quite yet. Of course, if I don't participate in the loading of the cabinets, I can't be expected to cook, right?

We will have new lights and outlets soon. The bathroom needs one more accessory and then it is finished.  I still have to provide some art, but right now I don't have time!

The living room drapes have arrived and the rods will go up tomorrow.  I just have to figure out how to get the wrinkles out as the instructions say that they are not to be ironed. Hmmm.  I think the old iron over a damp towel trick is in order.

Pardon the pictures, but I am using my phone since my camera gear is packed for my adventure.

The front window finally lost it's cornice board and the drapes.

New pantry doors!

This is what the rec room looks like when there is a painter, two tile guys, an electrician, a plumber and two shower door guys here.  

I can only say "YAY"!

Yummy!

Well, I'm off tomorrow for the wilds of the Des Moines area.  Hopefully, I'll grab some great shots and blog about the workshop instead of all this silly work at my house.  Laters.

The Week That Was

The trim above the cabinets.  I know, it's not that big of
a deal, but it looks so good.

Whew.  Such a lot got done this week.  Of course, you all know that my cabinets were set. They also got the trim around the cabinets mostly completed.

Most importantly, the counter top guy made it in on Wednesday to measure.  Yay.  Now we just have to wait for two weeks.  I feel like a kid waiting for Santa.

I took the plunge and purchased five boxes of backsplash tile.  Gulp.  I hope that it looks good.  I hate choosing things with only that little bitty piece of counter top as my guide.

We have doors and trim upstairs.  Yippee.  Even my husband said it looks really nice up there.  He doesn't usually say too much, so that is quite a statement.

Here is a great shot of the new door and
window trim.  You can see the darker old
paint.

We have a tons of new trim on the first level. While it is not yet all completed, what is there looks wonderful.

I need to go pick up the microwave and hood so that the electrician can come next week and install it. I don't know if that means that the rest of the electrical work will be done also or if they will need to come back.  Stay tuned for that info.

I made some things for the new bath.  I have been getting to know my brand new sewing machine and so far so good.  Those things are under wraps until everything in there is finished.  We are still dealing with the shower door and the accessories have yet to be hung.  Soon, friends, soon.

There will be cleaning and painting going on this weekend. Unfortunately, a lot of the painting is around the new trim.  This means taping and being careful.  Sigh.  However, the painters still have to come and give the trim a couple of coats, so there is room for some error.  Thank goodness.  Have I ever mentioned how much I hate painting trim?  It's as much fun as...  Sorry, it isn't fun at all!

There are still lots of things left to do, but until the counter tops come, there won't be a ton of noticeable changes.  There will be new outlets, light fixtures, new pantry shelving, trim and paint, but the majority of the work has to wait.  Do you suppose I could just wave my magic wand?

I love this shot.  The light was cool.  This is the new trim on the window looking out to our driveway.  I wish that we could change the funky window, but we can't right now.  Maybe someone will hit a ball into it and break it.  Darn.  That would be a shame.

We decided to leave the sills so that the kitties could have a place to sit.  The things we do for those kitties.  PS:  the dead bug in the upper part of the lower window has been there since last summer.  It is stuck in the screen.  I suppose we should knock it out, but it has kind of grown on me.

The cabinet on the left of this picture is a corner cabinet.  In order to get that sucker to fit, we had to get smack dab on the window.  This is the trim they had to make to replace the regular window trim.  

This was where the piano used to sit.  I love the white on this pale blue/gray paint.  Those are the shelves that were my contribution to the painting.  The doors to the right (on the floor) are for the kitchen pantry.

The upstairs hallway with new doors and trim.  And, proof that I do occasionally clean up around here.  This hall looks so bright and sunny.  I love it.