The Good and the Bad

First, a few non-disaster zone updates. We have eggs once again this year! This will be our third summer in this house and every summer we've had a nest with eggs. How fun! The kids keep getting lifted up each day to see if they've hatched.

Second, the garden has begun. These pictures were actually taken about a week ago and we have tall green onions, carrots sprouting, and spinach leaves appearing. And, something new this year, we have two broccoli plants with the broccoli starting to come in. Abby, our broccoli girl, is very excited. Jonah, not so much.

And the strawberries are already promising to be much more plentiful this year, which is great considering how fast the kids devour them.

Now for the good and the bad.

The good: Our drywall is almost complete and should be finished tomorrow.

The bad: Our house is dusty. Everywhere.

The good: We can paint the kitchen tomorrow and I have actually picked out a color I love. Sherwin Williams Silver Gray, which actually looks a bit green for whatever reason. This swatch doesn't look anything like it looks to me on the wall, but whatever. I like it.

The bad: The cabinets that were to get installed tomorrow (and the entire reason why we started the remodel in the first place) aren't going to work. Back to square one on the cabinets. Not good.

The good: In a frantic search to find new cabinets, we stumbled upon 3 cancelled orders for kitchens of the exact same wood, stain, and style that are at about a third of the normal price. Complete score! Here is a stock photo of the exact cabinets.

The bad: They don't have exactly the right pieces we need, so some would maybe need to be ordered. They will take 4 weeks to come in. BIG OUCH!!

The good: We have almost enough base cabinets from them to make what we have work and keep forging ahead.

The bad: There is essentially no way the kitchen will be completely finished for at least another month. Usable perhaps, but the project done, no.

The good: I am selling the cabinets we can't use on Craigslist (among other items from our former kitchen that are no longer needed) and we are making very good money on it. Enough to buy hopefully a new kitchen table that is bigger and better suits our needs and a few pieces of furniture for our living room.

So, that's where we're at. Hopefully the next pictures I put up are of painted walls. Can't wait to get this dust out!

Blank Canvas

We have walls!! The two rooms have officially become one. We still have a few more days of the drywallers mudding and sanding, but the majority of the drywalling is done. This window at the end is where the sink will be and was the dining room window.

This window is where our old sink was. To the right of it will be our fridge and to the left of it will be our pantry.

Our new ENORMOUS doorway. Brian will no longer need to duck. :)

This is looking in the kitchen from our living room. The opening on the right is now closed and things are taking shape!

And... probably what those of you who are actually interested have been waiting for... our finishes! Having a dad as a builder can be a bonus in remodeling I've found for many reasons, one of which being excellent deals! On the left is the flooring we will be putting in the kitchen and dining room. It's hickory and we love it! The slats will actually be an inch wider than these. In the middle is our granite-looking laminate countertop. And on the right is what our cabinets will be tentatively antiqued and painted to. We have gotten a set of cabinets for free which perfectly match ours, just the wrong stain. So, we're rearranging everything, mixing the two sets of cabinets here and there, and then painting and antiquing everything to match. I have a paint color picked out, but it's not set for sure and we're waiting on the backsplash for now until these other elements get put into place and we can see what we like.

The same stuff in natural light, in case you care. :)

So that's it! I think I will be blogging the layout soon as we're currently working on laying all the cabinets out in the garage making sure they work as we planned. The kids are enjoying all of our picnics outside and on the family room floor! I am working on a better game plan for meals this week, as cereal and bagels are going to get old quick.

In other news, Brian and I went to Ohio for a quick trip without the kids as he was inducted into his high school hall of fame on Saturday. We're proud of him! It was fun to get away and I was certainly thankful to get a break from the mess! Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa for keeping the kids. They had a blast!

Batty

Just when I thought things couldn't get more interesting... So Brian and I are sitting in the family room at 10:30 last night finishing up watching our DVRed Biggest Loser when we hear something in the kitchen. At first I thought it was Jonah, which hasn't happened in a looooong time (him getting out of bed), but you never know. Well, the noise is gone, we don't hear anything new, and so we assume that something must have fallen from the ceiling. About ten minutes later Brian goes into the kitchen to get me some water. While walking in there, he kicks a sleeping bag that Jonah had left on the kitchen floor and sees something, a bat, fly out from the bag. I am unaware of what's going on and the next thing I see is Brian jumping around our familiy room making a Tigger-like "hooo hooo hooo hooooooo" noise. At first I assumed he was trying to play a trick on me, so not buying it, I calmly asked him "What?". He said, "I think we've got a bat". After him eventually convincing me that he's not trying to trick me, we realize we need to get a course of action. We had no idea where the bat had gone. Brian thought he saw it fly towards the kitchen counter, but he's not sure. I have seen nothing. So, Brian grabs a blanket and two tennis rackets out of the garage. In the meantime, I called animal control and told them we have a bat, but they said unless we know the location of it they will not come over. The don't hunt for bats they said. Just what I wanted to hear. So, Brian and his rackets went on a bat hunt around our house. He's hitting everything in sight trying to scare the bat up, and if he starles it, he plans on drilling it with the tennis racket. Not my top choice, but at this point I just want the bat gone. After about 15 minutes of hunting, I told him I just figured that bat had flown out and we should give up and go to bed. Ignorance is bliss and I was tired. Brian makes one more look at the kitchen counter and thinks he might have spotted it. Since we have no lighting in our kitchen right now except a little light over the sink, I had to take the camera and use it to light the corner to confirm. Sure enough, the little bat is laying between our breadmaker and electric can opener, directly on our kitchen counter. (Please note, if these kitchen counters weren't going to be replaced already, they certainly would be now.) I immediately get on the phone with animal control, confirm that they'll be there in "5 to 45 minutes" and for the next half hour, this is the scene in our kitchen:

I was afraid to take a picture too close and startle it with a flash, so this is the only picture we have. While he’s waiting, ready to strike, Brian keeps telling me that he’s going to swing at it. I keep telling him to just let it be and after what seemed like an eternity, the doorbell rings. A young woman in her early 20s from animal control came to our rescue. She saw our construction and said “whoa” and then once she saw where the bat was, she put a flashlight on it, moved stuff around to expose it on the counter, and all the while it just laid there. I couldn’t believe it. At this point she tells me that she doesn’t like bats either, then looks at Brian with his rackets still raised and laughs. She got out her Folger’s coffee can with holes poked in the top, put it over the bat, and put the lid on. And that was it! I couldn’t believe how easy it was. We could have taken care of it ourselves, but either way I was thankful that we had a pro doing the dirty work. After another half our of winding down, we finally got to bed and then I laid there replying the scene over and over in my mind. I had asked the woman if they would put up netting or anything over our roof vents and she said they don’t do that. I then asked what are the odds of it happening again and she said it was slim. But then I got to thinking… if our ceiling had just come down today, and the bat had come in tonight, our odds were actually a one in one chance. Not the odds I like to hear. The other option is that the bat had already been in our attic and now was freed with the ceiling coming down. Something else I also didn’t want to think about. Either way, the contractor of our remodel (my dad) got a 7:30 phone call this morning from me and I have been assured that in the near future we will have someone on our roof, which they had to do anyway, to net the vents. In the meantime, I am going to pretend like this never happened and could never possibly happen again. :)

More Demolition

This is the current state of our kitchen. Half of the cabinets, more walls, and the ceiling have come down. It's starting to take shape! We have done almost all of the tearing down now and the last bit to go is the framing between the current kitchen and the old dining room. This week my brother Greg will be coming to take it down and frame in the new kitchen!

Here you can see the wall, all the way up to the ceiling, that will be coming down. Our new ceiling will keep the angle on the left slanted up and then go straight across on the right.

It will be so exciting to have twice the room!

This is the view from our living room. The doorway to the kitchen will be bigger and that hole on the right will be closed in.

Can't wait to see it closed in and get a better vision of what it's going to look like. (The fact that we have no lighting in our kitchen at the current moment doesn't help with the lack of vision either). :) And to be one step closer to have a functioning kitchen. So far we are only down a microwave and the stove is the next to go. As long as we have a fridge and the sink, I'm OK. Sandwich or cereal anyone?

Progress?

This is a before picture of our kitchen and also it's current state. The cupboards are all empty along the wall with the fridge because soon (possibly tomorrow even) the wall is coming down. The fridge and stove will be moved, but still accessible until they absolutely need to go. And our pantry is in boxes in our family room. Should be interesting for a while. :) Lots of grilling.

Now for our current dining room.... it is gutted. The walls are down, the ceiling is down, and the plumbing for the sink is in.
They also had to get into our basement ceiling (which is our current playroom) to do the plumbing and duct work, so while we are at it we are raising this part of the ceiling to accommodate a certain 6'11" person who lives with us and has to duck in this part of the house. I'm guessing he will have a least a son or two who would have had to duck some day as well. :)
So, that's where we are! No turning back now!!

The Before

Well, this is sort of a before. Our kitchen is not clean enough for me to take a decent before picture of, but these pictures give enough of an idea of what is going on.

This is our current dining room, although it's almost totally cleaned out in the picture. For a nicer looking picture, please see our Valentine's party post. :)

As you can see, we have a wall that divides our kitchen from our dining room. You actually have to walk through our living room to get into our dining room from our kitchen. This wall is coming down.
Our new kitchen will actually be a combination of these two rooms. Without getting into too much detail (that will come I'm sure...) to give you an idea, our new kitchen sink will be below the current dining room window on the right. The opening on the right into the dining room will be closed off and the doorway on the left into the kitchen will be widened.

Lots of changes coming our way and hopefully they all start tomorrow! I will post pictures of the progress along the way, mostly because I enjoy reading other people's blogs about this sort of thing. :) Can't wait to see and enjoy the end result!!

Happy Easter!

Coming soon.... we are remodeling our kitchen! I will be putting pictures up on the blog of the progress and in the next week or so will blog our before pictures and plans. Can't wait to get started!