time for an update

I guess three months is a long enough break from blogging ... i had to look at the old post to see what was new news ... the last post was before we went to colorado with rob and gretch ... fun times and we now both have the colorado bug ... winter was starting to set in out there so we were only able to climb one 14er so we partook in some touristy activities and plan to return next year a little earlier in the year !

as for the kitchen we now have countertops, solid surface and made from recycled materials ... we love the fact that the sink is fused in, similar to an undermount sink ... my aunt hooked us up with an awesome delta faucet that is proving to be useful for many chores other than just dishes ....

we re-grouted the floor tiles to a darker color which blends much better ... matt did most of the grouting of the backsplash, which is my favorite part of the kitchen !

we've also stained the cabinets but have yet to trim them out and add the pulls ... the plan is to re-use the pulls from the old cabinets since we had just replaced them when we moved in a little over a year ago ...

unfortunately with the kitchen still under construction the rest of the house is a little cluttered !

and i've started on a new project ... stripping and sanding all the trim in the house to stain it dark like it was originally when the house was built 80 years ago .... notice the nice hole in the wall i made pulling some of the trim down to work on it ! oops ....

but i don't want to forget the steps going from the kitchen to the back door ....

and a couple pics of the nephews for added cuteness ... ethan was 8 months in the pics and will is about 3 and a half and keeping matt in line ! (sorry kaylee, somehow we didn't end up with any pics of your cute self ) ...

and how about a few more of our "kids" ....

big changes !

big changes since the last post ... most of the kitchen tile is in and the grout set ... it turned out lighter than we wanted it so we're pursuing a way to make it stand out less and blend in more ! laying the tile wasn't too bad ... matt did the cutting so he could use power tools and i just ruined my hands playing in the mortar and grout ! (so yes we have a water saw adn you are more than welcome to borrow it !) .... tonight we moved the refrigerator and oven in ... it made a huge difference and helps put everything in perspective ... matt also rigged upa temporary counter top with a sink ---- to be honest i think he was antsy to try out the dishwasher and so far so good ! we'll be adding a cabinet over the fridge and also one next to it mounted on the wall ...

starting to put it all together

starting to put it all back together ... starting being the keyword in that statement ... tonight matt's friends helped him hang a couple more of the top cabinets, he set in place the cabinets for the "penninsula" and i started tiling ! there's no going back now ! it's the first time for all of these kind of projects for both of us so we are learning as we go .... as long as the cabinets don't fall off the wall and the floor stays still we'll be happy !

progress ! finally ....

Yeah ! Tonight we got around to setting some of the cabinets in place and taking the oven in to the kitchen to make sure everything would fit .... and it did ! We pretty much have to get the cabinets in soon as we picked out our countertops last night ! --- We're getting solid surface countertops so the sink will be integrated into the countertop. Better yet the countertop is "green" - it was made with recycled materials ... the only bummer is they won't be out to measure til next week so it will be a few weeks before it's installed. We learned something new though - there's no tax on installing countertops because they are considered a permanent part of the home, kinda cool!

So the new plan is to set the base cabinets so I can get the rest of the cement board in and start tiling this weekend ! We're still finalizing how we want our "penninsula" to look and how far it will stick out but that's the last big decision for awhile. We're hoping to be able to use the buthcher block countertop on it so we'll see !

Here's a pic of the progress ....

More demolition, an Irish victory and putting it all back together ...

Sorry it's been a bit since the last update but this kitchen renovation takes all the energy I have ! Let's recall, this "project" started out as me wanting to paint the kitchen green ... followed by well we might as well tile floors ... which turned in to Brandy thinking we should go ahead and fix the pregnant wall ... which turned in to dang these cabinets are crappy maybe we should just go look at new ones ... to let's get new cabinets and rewire the kitchen for all the new appliances ! .... Thanks goodness I qualified for a Lowes card with no payments or interest for 12 months !

All the appliances are here, with the exception of garbage disposal, but we don't have a sink right now so I don't think it's necessary just yet ! I'll have to get a picture later as most things are still in box or covered with a layer of dust !

We're kind of back to square one picking out the finishing touches ... we're going with the same floor tile we had picked out but it's proving rather difficult to pick out a counter top (we're going solid surface with an undermount sink) and the wall color/colors ... seems like most of the rooms in this house are a shade of tan so i would like to hit up some greens somehow .... suggestions ?

We took a break from kitchen demo and went up to the Notre Dame/Michigan game .... which was totally awesome and very rainy! But yeah for the Irish victory and I must say, they laid on some hard hits ! I'm still not impressed with Clausen, the god of a quarterback everyone says we have ....

We also got to see Matt's family and the babies ! Okay so Will is 3, Kaylee 1.5 and Ethan 6 months but they will always be the babies ! They are as cute as ever, Will is talking and he has such a cute voice and still does that third person talking thing "Will eat it or Will get it" which is so cute .... Kaylee is trying to talk as well and continues to be the porker of the trio, she's the wild child ! Ethan is trying to give her a run for her money though as he's working on another chin and thunder thighs ! Uncle Matt was a big hit for Will and it was great to hear him saying his name!

So back to work, Sunday my parents came up .... dad has some knowledge of electrical work, or atleast he's been shocked enough times that he knows what not to do, so he helped Matt get power to all the areas we need it so everything will be hidden in the cabinets .... unfortunately they had the power cut out when the Colts made their amazing comeback and mom missed the game winning field goal.... oops ! Mom helped me with the Lowes runs and she took on the much needed but not envied job of sweeping and dusting the living room and basement which had becomes victims of the kitchen demo .... and she's right, we're glad to have a few clean places to sit down !

Yesterday we started to put a few things back together ... some insulation in the outside walls and a few pieces of cement board on the wall and floor .... but then we decided it was getting a little too late to be using all the loud saws outside so we settled in to the end of Monday night football ....

After work today it's all kitchen .... we have a few more cabinets to knock out and then we will start putting up the drywall and cement board ! woo hoo ....

Here are some pics from all the craziness ... for the sake of time I'll just explain them all here adn you can browse through .... some pics of the states of the kitchen and the chaod that is the rest of the house ... Matt and I at the game ... Will driving his truck ... and Kaylee playing with the grass !

look what we found ...

last night was another late one ... our goal originally was to rip the floor up and get the cement board down .... well the floor proved to be ridiculously hard to pull up .... so as you saw in the pics i decided to tear down walls too while i waited for matt's muscle to get home !

the weird thing was when we got through both layers of vinyl and sub floor we found hardwood floor ! i love it because it's the wider kind unlike the skinny stiff in the rest of our house ... but it got a little banged up in the sub floor removal process and our heart's kind of set on tile so we're still going that route ... here's a few pics of what the demo entailed ... sorry the pics are kind of hazy but it was dusty ! tiki kept a good eye on things and is the foreman of the project ...

This is our make-shift door, since we had to remove our swingy door, but leave passage for the pups ... to bad we didn't think of this until demo was half done as we have a very dusty rest of the house !

unfortunately i have to get back to work ... there's still a little around the edges that is proving very difficult to pull up .... next update will hopefully entail some cabinet tear down and the starts of the new floor with perhaps a sneak peak at the appliances !

the first blog ... kitchen remodel

Last week I decided I wanted to re-paint the kitchen ... I've always wanted a green kitchen, so while our red kitchen was nice and always got good comments I couldn't live with it anymore (that and I felt the need to take on another project!). So I started painting and Matt came to terms with the really dark purple and green I had chosen. So last Friday we decided to go look at appliances, "look" being the key word there. Of course we found some we loved and on Saturday we went and made our big purchase.

Last night Matt and I decided that if we are getting the appliances we should go ahead and tile the floor .... after comtemplating the cheap and easy way verses the all out tile we decided to go with, of course, the real deal! And of course they had just sold out of the tile we wanted so we headed home to start the floor demo .... well wouldn't you know underneath the hideous old vinyl floor was another hideous old vinyl floor !

I started getting tired of pulling up flooring so I decided to pull off more of the baseboard and this is what happened ....

Oh well, we were going to put tile there too and would have to pulled it off eventually !

I need a drink ... and to get back to work !