Our Kitchen is Looking More Like a Kitchen Each Day

Wow!  This evening Jeff & I were able to spend some time in the construction zone (eh, that would be the kitchen), and we were so happy to see how everything is coming together.  For some reason it hasn't felt like our house yet.  I think that is because of all the trials & tribulations we've been through just to get to this point.  It's been a five year roller-coaster ride journey.  I guess I haven't yet allowed myself to feel truly excited about anything to do with this house because of always expecting something to go wrong.  I keep looking up in the air for the other shoe.  

But tonight was different.   I stood in the space where the stove is going to be, and suddenly it hit me--I will be cooking here.  I looked all around at each spot and could finally picture our day-to-day livng there.  I teared up.  This house means so much to me because of all the love that has gone into creating it, and because of the good things I will be able to do to rescue animals.  We have a long way to go, but it has done wonders for my sanity to actually see progess, and to see our plans finally coming to fruition.   The kitchen just feels like "us" now, even though it is unfinished.

Of course this is not to say that we don't have trouble still.  We discovered today that some of the the furniture detail side panels for the cabinets were missing.  I hope these can be ordered and rush shipped the way the rope design spacers have been.  I don't want to wait a day longer to have the kitchen complete.  We were told that we can go ahead and keep the spacers that do not fit.  They are such lovely pieces, so I am sure that I can find some creative way to use them.  Maybe for a shelf, or on our future mantle yet to be built.  I was also thinking of using them to build a small table and use them for the legs.  I'm creating a beverage center for coffee/tea upstairs by the bedroom, so perhaps this will be where that table will go.  Perhaps if there is any remnant from our granite order we can make a top for this table.  I have lots of ideas, but that one seems the best right now, and then I won't have to purchase a table.

Here you can see where the rope spacer will go.  I really think they make the cabinetry.

 The sink will go under the window and the dishwasher to the right.  The decorative window valance will go up soon.

We decided to create a shelf for the microwave to keep it off of valuable counter space.

The crown moulding will go on top of the cabinets, ceiling, and into the dining room.  We still need to decide on a coordinating chair rail for the dining room too.  

 This picture of the peninsula without the counter showcases all of the storage we will have.  I am very excited about that because I've always had a problem with lack of space creating clutter in my work area.  This will help so much.

 On the left is the refrigerator cabinet and pantry closet.

The pantry closet has 4 roll-out trays.

 The corner cabinet by the stove has a dual shelf lazy susan.  Oh and look--it's a cricket on the floor. They mean good luck:-)

 This is the corner that attaches to the peninsula.  I love the corner cabinet.  That's probably where I will store our everyday dishes because of the proximity to the dishwasher.  I'm not loving the paint color, though.  It's reading a lot darker on the walls than I thought.  It's still a nice color though, and I don't know if I feel like repainting it.

 We needed a pull-out trash and recycling center for convenience.  I don't like these things to be visible, and pulling them out will be easy on my bad back since the cabinet rolls out.

A pull-out spacer will serve nice as a wine rack or for spices to be be functional and save space.

The drawers are full-extension so no space at all is wasted.  I love how deep these are for storage of cookware.

Apparently we are not the only creatures enjoying our house.  Jeff found this snakeskin in the basement, so I guess we have snakes:-( 

They are going to get an eviction notice since we're going to have to humanely relocate them.  We may need some help finding them and trapping them alive so they may be released in a more suitable habitat for them--and that is not with us!   I worry about our pet rabbits and mice.

We also found this very large spider trying to get in the back door.  I hope that he doesn't find his way in the way the ants did.  They ate the leftover pumpkin bread that I made for the team working over there.  Ants weren't invited!

Cabinet Installation & Cabinet Organization

Wow, everything is going at lightning speed now in the kitchen.  Some of the cabinets are installed already--ahead of schedule.  I got to meet the people working over there and they are so nice and helpful.  One of them thanked me for sending them the homemade pumpkin bread.  That made me feel good:-)

One thing really surprised me:  the peninsula is H-U-G-E.  Too big, really, but it's too late to modify it now.  I wasn't expecting that.  It's hard to visualize what something will actually look in your home from a 2-D drawing.  If I could do this over again I would have made it smaller so that it doesn't encroach so much into the living room.  The granite is going to arc into the dining room and have bar stools to go with it for extra seating.  Being larger than we expected it will serve as a nice double sided buffet when we have parties. 

 The walls have been painted in Olympic's "Cracker Bitz," and the range hood and vents are being installed.

 Here's the peninsula. 

 The decorative spacers were the wrong size:-(  We have to reorder them.  I hope they come in really soon. 

 The pantry closet has been partially nstalled.

 We really like the look of the cabinets.  They've done a beautiful job.

I was happy to see the purple morning glory climbing on the right side of the window. 

We picked out classico & rosette trim for the window and got matching door trim. 


Photo from Lowes.com

Over each door in the kitchen we will place a painted white ornament:

Our cabinets already have pull-outs and full extension to make living convenient, but we decided to purchase some organizers to maximize storage and ease.  Rev-A-Shelf has so many wonderful options.  We purchased several items, but this this is my favorite one:


Photo from Lowes.com



You can store all of your cleaners and paper towels under the sink--but it's removable!  That means I can pick it up and carry it anywhere in the house easily when it's cleaning day.  Gotta love that!



Photo from Lowes.com

Since we have a similar setup with our fridge, we can make use of often unused space with these bakeware organizer.  This will be so much more convenient than stacking them all together and storing them in the drawer under the stove.




Photo from Lowes.com

 These little under-cabinet shelves are handy for my soap, lotion, and sponges.

We also thought this would be a wonderful way to maximize base cabinet storage, and it rolls out:

Photo from Lowes.com



Photo from Lowes.com

 In the corner cabinet this will be nice to store plates and bowls so they can be easily grabbed rather than all stacked together.  I hope it will fit, and I hope our dishes work with it.



Photo from Lowes.com

 We normally carry reusable shoppng bags in the interest of being green, but we do need to get plastic ones sometimes which we recycle as garbage bags (we hate buying plastic garbage bags, and we don't have much garbage at all since we recycle and we're going to start composting soon) and for dog duty.  This can fit into a cupboard and keeps the bags tidy.

We discussed continuing the dining room and kitchen flooring into the hallway and powder room for a seamless look; that may be best with an open floor plan.  We're concerned that the floor may be uneven again and need work.  We are really hoping that this is not the case because that is expensive to fix.  We're getting a quote with the best case and worst case scenarios.

Hallway Lighting & Flooring

It feels like we have a finger in every room re-do at the moment.  Although our kitchen and dining room are taking the most attention, we are turning our efforts to other spaces in the house too.  The house needs light.  Lots of it!  We had our electrician add additional wiring to brighten up any dim areas, and I am so excited to be able to make the upstairs hallway look inviting and bright.  Old houses can be spooky when they look dark, so I wanted to bring warmth to the darker spaces. 

I love the hallway upstairs.  The heavy mahogany staircase is so lovely, and it winds into the upstairs leading you down a hallway shows off the vintage woodwork that extends the length of the upstairs.  There is  a big window at each end of that hallway, and now that we have electric on both ends we decided to put a chandelier at each end.  You will be able to see them from outside which will make the house look inviting (especially since we have welcome lamps for each window as well).  I know I'm a bit nuts for chandeliers, but it is a love affair that goes way back into childhood for me.  And a vintage home seems to call out for them.  I give the house what it wants;-)

I found these mini crystal chandeliers for on Ebay:

 You really can't beat Ebay for lighting deals.  Estate Lighting has been a wonderful retailer to me.  I emailed them and asked if they would provide a discount because I've been a loyal customer and was interested in buying multiples--and they gave me a nice discount.

Photo from Estate Lighting

These petite chandeliers are only about 12 " tall, so they are the perfect functional accent for our hallway. 

To complete the look I purchased these small sized Rotherham ceiling medallions:

They are the perfect complement for the chandeliers. 

We were thinking about flooring for that area.  Right now there is very old threadbare and stained carpet from the 1960s there.  The hallway looks sad.  When we had a floor expert come out to provide an estimate for other rooms, we discovered that the floor underneath is the same gorgeous hardwood as the staircase!  How wonderful is that?!  That same floor would cost a fortune today.  The portion I saw gleamed out from the nasty carpet--it looked shiny and brand new!  Even the floor guy was amazed with the 5 or 6" width of the planks.  He told us that you can't even find any floor like that today.  I pray that he rest of the floor is in that great shape. 

Kitchen Window & Drywall

We're so happy!  The drywall is up, and our kitchen looks more like a real kitchen now. 

Look at that view!  We can already see the leaves changing for Autumn.  There is a very old Dogwood tree just outside, and in the Spring time it is going to bloom and be stunning.  I'm putting a birdfeeder there so I can watch the birds from the kitchen.  I am so happy that we decided on a design that made this window explansion possible.  The light that this lets in is just wonderful.  It makes the large space even airier.  Our vision for our new home is slowly coming to life; it feels so good to see our ideas come to fruition.  Thank you Walt and P.J. from American Design & Build.  They have done a fantastic job on our windows.  We highly recommend their services.

The carpenter has patched the window we removed so that we could move the location of our range.  This is what is looks like from the back porch:

We are going to make it look much better a bit later when we select period-appropriate siding and renovate both porches. We spent some time trying to select flooring for the kitchen and dining rooms.  We thought we made a selection months ago, but we decided to create a more seamless look between the rooms.  We have some considerations for the kitchen that make selection a little tougher.  Because of my herniated disc I really need a soft floor since I work in the kitchen so long each day.  I also need the floor to be durable, flexible, and very easy to clean.  I love the look of natural stone.  My back could never take natural stone, but I wanted a really quiet and calm look that would not compete with the granite countertops.  We decided on a stone look vinyl.  I wanted so much to be more green, but with the time constraints and soft requirement/easy care there wasn't too much of a selection.  It is made of recycled material, however.  I worry a bit that the floor won't look appropriate with the cabinetry and counters we chose.  It's really about comfort though.  I may have to replace the floor more often.  You can see one of our cabinet doors, a sample of our granite, and the paint color we selected. 

We think it will look nice together.  I really wanted white marble for the dining room, but it just wasn't in the budget.  We really couldn't justify spending over 5K (my jaw dropped!) on a floor for one room.  I figured if I couldn't do stone in the kitchen because of my back, why not in the dining room since I don't work in there?  Later on we will do it, and shop around for a better price but there are are too many other projects that we need to complete first.    We also learned that steam mops are not good for any floors except for on carpet:-(  The salesman we spoke to told us that all of the advertising for these mops really do a disservice to customers because they compromise the health of the flooring.  They are so easy to use (especially with my back problem).  I'm disappointed that I cannot use the Shark that my aunt and uncle bought me as a housewarming gift.  I'll find some way to use it. 

We are so impressed with the way our team has worked hard for us.  We wanted to do something nice for them, so we bought them a case of Coke and I made some of my pumpkin bread for them. 

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We saw birds pitching down in the evening in the old oak tree, and I thought it was a cool looking scene:

This looks like a Halloween type of picture.

It Won't Be Long Now

Kitchen insulation is in! 

 New plumbing in the ceiling has been installed. 

Cable was run through the kitchen up to the second floor.

A new smoke detector with a protective cap right now.  There's a lot of drywall dust flying around right now.  I had a serious asthma attack the other day from being in the house:-(  I haven't had one in years so it was kind of scary.

 This is our future exercise room and office.  We had cabling done and ran some piping from the kitchen below.

 Another smoke detector in the master bedroom.  Safety is really important to us.

 Yet another smoke detector in the hallway between the master bath and exercise room. 

 The elctricians have added outlets and new wiring to the master bathroom.  There used to be only one light that was attached to the medicine cabinet.  This room sorely needs a makeover. 

 One more smoke detector in the guest room.  I'm really excited to be able to set the rooms up for guests now that we have the space to make them comfortable.

We're also taking care of some things outside, too.  It's easier now.  Jeff's parents are awesome--they bought us a new tractor!  I was very moved by this generosity.  We are very grateful.  The first thing Jeff did with it was run it into the shed.  Apparently the accelerator is where the brea was on the old tractor.  Our shed now has a big dent.  Jeff's dad says we can probably bang the dent out though.  The yard needs a lot of work though.  It's been neglected far too long. 

We Live in a Rhombus!

So we discovered that our new house isn't a rectanngle; it's a rhombus.  See, Mr. Holtz (12th grade geometry teacher) I was paying attention afterall.  You can see how our carpenter had to grade this part of our window sill on the triple window to keep everything symmetrical:

We found some damage from the earthquake, too, in the master bathroom:

 

We're going to do a complete remodel of it anyway though.  Just not yet.  The master bath is HUGE, but looks very dated right now.  It's a great canvas to the imagination right now, so I am throwing some ideas around in my head of what I want to do with it.  I'm starting with a whirlpool tub.

The kitchen recessed lights have been wired.  We have 6 of them:

And so have the water systems and gable fan:

 Not really sure what all that is.  I am assuming it is electrical work.

 Jeff inspecting the master bedroom.  The old carpet is coming up soon and drywall will be installed.  Then we'll paint just before we move in, which should be soon.

We keep finding heart shaped things around the house.  This is some rubble.

 The sunset illuminated the trees in this very soft way in our back yard.  I love how the warm glow just kind of caresses the landscape.  We will surely enjoy this view from our back porch in the evening.

 This is what the kitchen triple window looks like from the outside.  The old cellar door will be replaced. That's what caused our basement to get water during the monsoons we've had lately.

 This is the corner of our property where this ancient oak resides.  I'm so sad that it has be cut down:-(  You can see how only half of it is alive.  It wants to live so bad.  If only there were some way to save it.  It's been around since The Civil War. 

 Jeff called me over to see this plant.  He said, "Look--hearts!"  We keep finding 'em!

 We are always making new discoveries at the house, and the heart-shaped  leaves belong to a gorgeous purple Morning Glory vine.  I was glad to see this because they are so pretty.


We're happy with the progress so far:-D