Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Just a Reminder...

Well...it's official! We no longer have a kitchen! Good thing that's only temporary!

When we got home from work last night we discovered that all was left of our old kitchen was an empty shell. No cabinets, no sink, no stove, no walls, and no ceiling! SWEET! You know what that means...it can only get better from here!

I'll be posting some photos soon.
But in the meantime I wanted to remind myself, and all of you, of how frustrating it was to function in the old kitchen. So while we wait a month or two for our new kitchen to be completed, we can just keep reminding ourselves of these images and how anything will be better than what we had! Even the chaos of construction is leading us towards something better!

Moving on....
Last weekend, with our last weekend with a kitchen upon us, I decided to make one last batch of cookies for the husband. Boy was he thrilled...until he saw the mess I made. But then again, we didn't really have to work hard to clean it up since it was all about to be destroyed!

With only 12" of counter space, and 12" of height to work with....my poor kitchenaid mixer didn't exactly have much of a work space to spread out in. This results in flour being measured over the stove, (imagine...flour in the burners, on the floor, on the rug, in the sink, and all over me!) and at least 1 dropped egg splattered on the floor. All ingredients get spread out on the stove usually. You might be asking out load why I didn't just cover the stove. Well I tried that. Not nothing was stead enough propped on top of the burners. I suppose I could have taken the burners apart...but the center still stuck up on each burner so that wouldn't have really worked either. Oh well!

I thought I'd share some pictures of what it was like!








p.s. Anyone want any hand made ceramic creations made by ME? I have about 2 dozen small to medium sized bowls, small creamers, etc... FYI-I take commissions for larger items (cake plates, chip and dip bowls, platters, teapots, etc...) ;)

Stove for Sale!

Are you in need of a new/pre-owned stove? We have one for sale! It looks a little old-school, but isn't as old as you might think! It's a fantastic range! 36" 5 burner gas range. Center panel can be swapped out for a griddle (included). Very clean! Well Maintained! Digital Display!

Here are some photos!









Signs of Spring!

On my way out the door the other morning I spotted something purple and green out of the corner of my eye. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that those little pops of color were indeed plants! That's right...greenery!! Something growing out of the ground! You know what that mean! SPRING!

Too bad it's supposed to snow tomorrow!







p.s. Tan colored stuff=dead plant materials=time for spring clean up. After the snow melts again that is!

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

It's really happening!!

It's official, we signed our lives away in order to have our kitchen redone. I couldn't be any happier about it! Seriously, I don't think it's possible!

The cabinets are officially being ordered tomorrow. (Thank you Norcraft, for messing up the sample door you sent us, thus allowing us extra time to place our cabinet order without having to incur the 3% price increase you began last week! SWEET!) Andre is going to work on getting all our permits in order on Friday, and then...he'll begin work around the 30th.

So...the obvious question here is: Who is coming to help me pack up the kitchen? :) I have the weekend of the 25th free! My only commitment is picking up my dress for Kristina's wedding! If you come help I'll feed you...unless of course you're my mama in which case you can feed me. I'll happily accept! Just kidding...sort of. That was a joke. Really it was. Are you laughing?

p.s. I'm already taking applicants for who wants to come help organize our NEW kitchen when it's done! Mom G-K?? This has your name written all over it! You did round one almost a year ago already! This time it will be much more fun because there will actually be places to put things, and a dishwasher to wash things in, and a convection oven, and you'll be able to get ice from the ice-maker, and water from the door on the fridge, you get the idea... Oh and if you're lucky there might be Peet's coffee!

p.p.s. This doesn't really sound like much fun now does it? I'll understand if you all ditch me and make me do it all on my own. I can handle it! :)

p.p.p.s. Visitors are always welcome...but I recommend waiting until the dust clears. You won't want to get sucked into helping clean. Or do you? Mom B??? Mom G-K??? hmm what's that I hear? You're busy?

Friday, March 11, 2011

Migration of the Fridge-Again.

In case you forgot park one in the migration saga. Here's a refresher:

When the fridge was delivered, we didn't realize how LARGE it was. It was so big we couldn't move it through the door frame into the kitchen. So it had to be placed in the dining room. After removing the door frame between the "mudroom" and kitchen, and taking down some "cabinets," we were finally able to have our friends from Sears come back to move the fridge out of the dining room, through the front door, around the outside of the house, back into the kitchen and into it's semi-permanent home.

Here is what it looked like:

LARGE AND IN CHARGE!



Thankfully I saved my friend Justin's phone number. He's a little sneaky and liked to make a little extra spending money on the side. So he and his delivery partner from Sears like to take on the odd job or two while they are already in town delivering some else's brand new appliances from Sears.

Now would be a good time to mention that the reason we are moving the fridge out of the kitchen again is because we are in fact renovating the kitchen. And no, we aren't just getting new cabinets and appliances, we are gutting the whole room (and hallway) and starting from scratch. We will be changing the entire footprint of the kitchen. Am I scared? YES! Am I indescribably excited? YES! I think it will feel wonderful to walk around and use our new kitchen knowing that we have saved to do this project. And that it is all ours!

Anyhow...back to the story. I'm sure you're wondering why we couldn't just roll the sucker into the dining room. That brings me back to the door frame issue again. Every single door frame in the house is too small to fit the fridge through. Back in 1930 things were built a little smaller! So, my buddy Justin came last Saturday to move the fridge back out through the back door, around the house, in the front door, and into the dining room. It's also important to note that the fridge weighs well over 300 pounds, and all the doors, feet, electrical parts has to be removed in order to get the thing through the doors. Oh...speaking of doors, all the doors in the back had to physically be removed in order to make this happen!

Anyhow!

This was a great opportunity to clean out the fridge.
Here are some of the "treasures" we found.




Look what we unearthed! Yes, that would be our wedding cake. Yes, we still have (had) it. As you may recall we were cruising in the middle of the ocean at the time or our anniversary. I suppose we could have brought our cake with us, but we didn't. It was sort of nice to see it in the freezer every time I went to get something out of there. However, we finally decided that it's time to say goodbye to the cake. We took it out of the freezer, along with everything else, and let it thaw out for a few days on the counter (thanks cousin Jamie for that advice!)



Here's the rest of the "stuff"
I got rid of a lot of old condiments and things. And I tried to arrange them in categories so that after the fridge was moved and we'd cleaned the shelves (ahem--Michael cleaned the shelves--THANK YOU!) we could organize everything a little better.



Like the sheets covering the table? We figured we might as well start getting things covered for the construction process. Hopefully we can keep the dust to as minimum. HA. Wishful thinking right? Well that's the new look of the dining room for the time being.

Here's the empty fridge area.





Phew. One small step behind us...about a hundred HUGE leaps forward until this project is over. I can't wait!

p.s. I forgot to mention the funniest part of this whole thing. You all think I'm the only weird one here who wanted to keep all the protective plastic on the fridge until the kitchen was completed. (The thought of the fridge not feeling all shiny and new like everything else in the kitchen makes me crazy--just kidding--sort of!) Anyhow...you all have no idea. You're sitting there reading this thinking I'm insane...BUT...you have no idea! I finally used the fridge clean out as an excuse to remove all the plastic covered every inch of the INSIDE of the fridge. (Yes! There is still plastic inside!) I didn't consult the 2nd owner of the fridge first. BIG MISTAKE. I started to peel off a piece and he happened to be watching me. Oh my god...if you'd heard the GASP and seen the CRINGE you would have thought I'd taken a key to one of his precious vehicles! That's right...you all blame me for this...but NO...HE is the reason the fridge is still covered in plastic. Have you seen his ipod touch--yes the one I bought him about 4 years ago. It's still covered in the factory protective plastic! Help me...I'm not the looney here, he is! :)

The Great Flood

I know you've been patiently waiting for pictures of the first basement flood. Well I must say...it could have been a lot worse. In fact, there were some spots that were completely dry. Then again, there were some spots that were submerged by 2-3 inches of water. Good times!







Out came the wet vac. Here it is on the first trip up the stairs. It's definitely a two-person job getting that thing full of water up the stairs! Our sore backs can vouch for it!

After filling it about 12 more times, we finally gave up and decided to head to work.



We made progress, but it just kept filling up. You may have noticed that you don't see the sump pump in any of these pictures. That would be because its in an area of the basement...the only area of the basement pretty much...that DIDN'T flood. HA! I hope you're all getting a good laugh out of that! We sure did...after the fact. :)





We've had the dehumidifier running and have finally dried out the basement. All our rugs...not so much! Live and learn! Thank goodness we took the time a couple weeks ago to carry the dressers upstairs and get the new stove and dishwasher off the ground. And life goes on...

Monday, March 7, 2011

Good News/Bad News

Bad news first:

The basement flooded last night

Good news:

It's a sign of spring isn't it?!?! I'm going with it. Humor me...

pictures coming soon...