Kitchen Renovation: More electrical stuff

Today: living room lights and wiring to outlets in what will be the island. HVAC duct re-routed so it will come out under the kick plate on the island. Lots of new switches for all the new lights.

5/31 dinner: Red Robin... Yumm!

Kitchen Renovation: More Lights!

Today was more electrical work... the wiring was run for the lights in the dining room, and more outlets and switches were added. One more day of electric tomorrow, apparently...

5/30 dinner: Soup and sandwich. Simple dinner was not without challenges. Apparently can't have the electric griddle and microwave running at the same time. Tripped the circuit twice. Moved the griddle to the landing and put it on the welcome mat instead of on the floor. Welcome mat is now missing two strips of material, which are burned onto the bottom of the griddle. Doh!

Kitchen Renovation: Let there be light!

Today we got five lights in the kitchen, one of which is actually over the sink and on its own switch! Very exciting!

We also lost some more ugly tiles!

5/29 dinner: Every person kind of own his or her own before we went a zillion different ways. Sources of food included our fridge, McDonald's, Chipotle, and Taco Bell.

Kitchen Renovation: Island Outpost

We have the framework of an island...

And the carpet is pulled up in the Living Room now. Yay... more exposed, fake parquet flooring! Soon enough, that will be gone, too. :)

5/27 dinner: Talapia filets on the grill (finally used our grill basket), peas in the microwave, rice in the microwave. Sweet Frog for dessert. :-)

Thinking...

If K-dog could get on my lap, she would so be there right now. All almost 100 pounds of her.

I am working at home waiting for a service technician from the gas company, and the contractors are upstairs using a nail gun. K-dog does NOT like the nail gun. She was neurotic when our roof was being replaced a couple years ago, too--and our neighbor's roof before that.

Fortunately for me, I already have my laptop in my lap; however, she has still managed to get her big ole head in my lap, too. I guess that's comfort enough...

Kitchen Renovation: Holiday Weekend

Three-day break for Memorial Day weekend, but they are back at it today.

We took off camping. Our cooking/cleaning up was about the same level of primitiveness; however, the campground we were at has no on-site water, so--while we didn't have to wash dishes in the bathroom sink--we had to schlep water from the bath house for cooking/cleaning up.

5/25 dinner: Hamburgers cooked on the campfire, mac and cheese, Doritos/chips
5/26 dinner: Hot dogs cooked on the campfire, mac and cheese
5/27 dinner: Chipotle BBQ chicken on the grill, corn on the cob cooked on the grill burner, and watermelon

Kitchen Renovation: Wall Frame

Today, among other things, the stair rails were removed and the frame was built for the new knee wall. The stair rail was then temporarily re-attached. The hideous kitchen light fixture is also gone. Woo hoo! And the Dining Room carpet was pulled up.

5/24 dinner: sandwiches from Santini's New York Deli

Kitchen Renovation: Reinforcement

Lookie, lookie, no wall!

And to ensure that's not an issue -- even though two structural engineers came to inspect and declared it a non-load-bearing wall --we got some extra support in the attic.

5/23 dinner: Fish sticks in the toaster oven, mac and cheese on the grill burner, leftover peas in the microwave

Kitchen Renovation: Progress!

Here is what we came home to:

More of that lovely wall paper and lots of light!

5/22 dinner: Pei Wei -- a new place for the boys. Keeper Boy liked; JMav did not. He declared that next time he's just going to get a bowl of plain, white rice.

Kitchen Renovation: Before

And so it begins...

We spent the last four days -- in our spare time between sporting events, work, sleep, and other "life" events -- emptying out our kitchen, dining room, and living room in preparation for our kitchen/upstairs remodel. It's very exciting, but it was a pain in the butt. And now our "kitchen" is downstairs in our Rec Room for the next six weeks.

I feel like these should be captioned, "Next, on Hoarders..."

 Here are some "before" pictures to kick it off...

And before I left the house this morning, the contractors had already taken down a couple cabinets. THIS was on the wall behind them...

Ick! That wasn't even what was on the kitchen walls when we bought the house, although that was almost as hideous.

Bathroom remodel

Let's try this again... I finished the post the first time and all of the pictures disappeared. Sigh.

We were offered a discount on remodeling our lower-level bathroom if we did it in conjunction with our kitchen remodel (which starts next week). So we did. It's more than the bathroom in that we carried the tile down the hallway and into the closets and laundry room. To save even more money, we did the painting (hall, bathroom, closets, and laundry room) ourselves. And Hubby is doing the door/window trim and baseboards in all of those places except inside the actual bathroom. He is also replacing the doors on the furnace closet himself and we are painting all of the doors and replacing the door knobs and hinges ourselves. So that part is still in progress as we are weekend warriors. But it's coming along.

Yesterday, though, the bathroom was declared complete and we are able to start using it.

Here are some pictures of the process. I don't really have a true "before" picture. But let's just say it was very pink...

Perhaps there was an ice cream parlor in our bathroom in a previous life... this is the wall paper we found behind the mirror!

JMav LOVED destroying the bathroom!

Funk one of the hall closets from a previous shower leak

It turns out that the door trim is mostly what holds the door frames in in our house...

 

 

Hubby is building a shelf to put over top of the washer/dryer

BONUS! They fixed the big hole in the ceiling that's been there for years as a result of a roof leak. WOO HOO!