Kitchen renovation: under cabinet lights

We were off at King's Dominion on Friday, but when we got home at the end of the weekend, the under-cabinet lights were installed, and a few other odds and ends.

6/28 dinner: Ponderosa (not as good as we remember...)
6/29 dinner: Applebee's (the only non-mom & pop or scary sounding restaurant within 30 minutes of where we were staying)
6/30 dinner: Olive Garden (J-Mav's choice for his birthday)

Kitchen renovation: Day of rest

No work today. :-(

6/27 dinner: fridge foraging...

Kitchen renovation: Stair case

Today we got new balusters, posts, and railings. Beautiful! Can't wait until the stairs are stained to match!!

6/26 dinner: Cheesecake Factory (the boys needed hair cuts, so it was easier just to eat at the mall)

Kitchen renovation: Tile day!

Today, tile appeared on the walls! I'm not sure what's up with the rectangle of no tile in the accent area... maybe they ran out? Guess I'll find out tomorrow.

They also ripped the carpet off the stairs in preparation for the rail technician to come tomorrow to install the new railing and balusters. Nice that there was wood under there already. It just needs to be stripped down and re-stained.

Maybe, just maybe, tomorrow we'll get some appliances installed. Not sure. At the least, we'll have a new railing. :)

6/25 dinner: Pasta cooked on the grill burner. It was just me, Hubby, and J-Mav as Keeper Boy is at his friend's house until sometime tomorrow.

Kitchen renovation: GRANITE!!!

Very exciting day today... came home to counter tops!!

And to catch up on the last several dinners:
6/22: various food from the food court at the Leesburg Outlets
6/23: steak on the grill, baked potatoes and veggie in the microwave
6/24: fajitas

Kitchen renovation: Day of rest

I believe today was a day of rest... I don't see that anything was done today other than the Project Manager leaving stain samples for us to look at and choose which we want for the railing.

6/21 dinner: Texas Roadhouse

Kitchen renovation: some finishing

Looks like they did a lot of finishing stuff on the cabinets today (along the floor, and the panels around the island). It looks more and more finished every day!

Lots of outlets on the island! This is good, because there were four outlets on the walls that are no longer there. So these four replace those four. :)

The painter was also back today finishing up the knee wall and do some patching from when the appliances were brought in.

6/20 dinner: Keeper Boy, J-Mav and I went to Red Robin. Yummm! Hubby is at the Nats game. He probably had a hot dog.

Kujo?

Last night K-dog decided to taste J-Mav's eyebrow. :-(  Hubby and I weren't here, so we aren't sure what exactly happened, but from what Keeper Boy, J-Mav, and JE (J-Mav's BFF) told us, it sounds like K-dog got startled and acted on instinct. The boys were playing hide and seek and J-Mav was going to hide behind K-Dog's crate, in which she was sleeping. We are guessing that she didn't hear J-Mav coming and either felt his presence or heard him when he was right at the opening in her crate (it wasn't closed) and just reacted.

Facial wounds bleed a lot. Keeper Boy freaked out a little. He couldn't get ahold of us because we were in a meeting and we both had our phones on mute. So he ended up calling JE's parents. It was a little party when we got home a half hour later.

We cleaned it up and it didn't look deep or gaping, so we put a bandaid and some Neosporin on it. He was more freaked out than hurt.

It was swollen this morning, but he still wanted to go play in his flag football tournament. All good. Tonight it looks better... not as swollen. Scabby though.

As for K-Dog, she hung her head when we walked in the door, seemingly knowing she had messed up. It is not like her. Though we have noticed a snarl when people get in her vicinity while she's eating. She's always been that way about her food.

That said, there will be no strike three for her... if she shows aggression toward anyone again, we will need to find her a new home. We hope it doesn't come to that.

Kitchen renovation: knobs and finish and appliances, oh my!

Our appliances were delivered this morning! (There's a microwave, too... it's off to the left.)

And our cabinets now have knobs and more trim!

6/18 dinner: chicken on the grill, mashed potatoes, mixed veggies... and Sweet Frog for dessert

Kitchen renovation: more on cabinets

The cabinets are looking really good!

 Today, they also put the cap on the knee wall. It will be painted white, ultimately, to match the trim.

And! We got the approval picture for our granite to make sure we are okay with where the seam is on the island and where some of the unique parts of the granite are placed (like the large swaths of cream on the island). Love it! [Click on the picture to see the whole thing... I placed it as extra large so you probably won't see it all on your screen in the blog.]

6/18 dinner: hamburgers on the grill; mac& cheese on the grill burner

Kitchen renovation: good news!

Good news! The company that made our cabinetry is going to replace the 30" pantry cabinet with a custom built 28.5" pantry cabinet. This is the best possible outcome to the cabinet snafu that surfaced on Friday. Very happy. It will take two weeks. The contractor says we are still on track; however, I don't see how that's possible since they are scheduled to finish next Thursday and that's less than two weeks from now. So we'll see. We're probably into July now before we will have a finished kitchen...

In the meantime, we have cabinets (except the pantry)!!!

I was downtown all day at a corporate meeting. Hubby worked at home this afternoon to be there when the granite guy came to make the template. I got a flurry of texts toward the end of my meeting... center the faucet to on the sink, or in light with the divider in the sink? garbage disposal on the left sink well or right? garbage disposal button placement? decorative trim on the bottom of the cabinets or no? outlets on the island horizontal or vertical? white or brown? Hubby just finally made a list and we made all of the decisions in about five minutes after I got home. I'm tired of making decisions!!!

Speaking of the sink... it's still shrink-wrapped, but you can get an idea... big, stainless steel farmhouse sink. Love it!

We're getting there...

6/15 dinner: leftover pizza and cupcakes from J-Mav's birthday party
6/16 dinner: The Melting Pot (in celebration of Father's Day, but kinda also for Justin's birthday... we had promised to take him and it never worked out.. and for J-Mav's birthday)
6/17 dinner: Subway (me, Hubby, and Keeper Boy); J-Mav ate at "his other house"

Heard...

So this picture pops up on my Twitter feed and I show it to Keeper Boy. J-Mav is on the other side of the room.
KB: They're hot!
J-Mav: What?
KB: They're HOT!
Me: He's saying they are pretty.
J-Mav: Oh. I thought he meant they were sweating or something. 

Kitchen Renovation: a snafu

I worked from home today. Not sure that was a good thing. Turns out when you're home and there are contractors in your house you hear every under-the-breath mutter and expletive. It might be better to get from Point A to Point C, and not be privy to the detours it took to get past Point B.

However, today I was along for the ride around Point B. Our lovely 30-inch pantry cabinet is slightly too big. Someone mis-measured. It appears to have been the designer from the distributor, though I think a zillion different people measured and re-measured. We are talking about being off by less than 1/2". At first they were talking about replacing the drywall that the pantry is against with thinner drywall. But the owner of the company doing the remodel wasn't comfortable with that. He thought it would still be too tight. As it stands now, he is going to try to get the company to custom manufacture a 28.5" pantry cabinet for us. If they won't, I guess we'll get a new one that's a standard 27" size. Either way, we won't need to pay for it. It'll be disappointing if we have to go down to 27" though I guess in the grand scheme of things, 3" won't make that much of a difference...

Stay tuned...

In the meantime, there's some cabinets in our kitchen!!

6/14 dinner: Tonight we are headed to CiCi's Pizza for the end-of-season party for J-Mav's baseball team.

Kitchen renovation: CABINETS!!

The cabinets were delivered today!! Installation starts tomorrow...

6/13 dinner: The plan is to eat out of the fridge tonight.

Kitchen renovation: Day of rest

Not a lot happened today. The flooring guys came back and put the bull nose on the landing. We now can't walk on it for 48 hours. I guess it's glued in rather than nailed. Makes it interesting to go up and down the stairs. :)

The carpenter also put the rims on all the can lights in the ceiling. They look nice. :)

No pictures today.

6/12 dinner: pasta on the grill burner

Kitchen renovation: floor's done!

The floor is done. It's beautiful. And, it's already been "christened." So that's out of the way...

We bought new floor vents and the Lowe's bag split open, spilling the vents onto the cardboard that is still covering the traffic areas of the floor. Unfortunately, it gauged the floor THROUGH the cardboard. Had to happen sometime, I guess... we'll see if it can be fixed.

Tomorrow was supposed to be finishing the flooring, so I guess it's just an off day instead. Probably good. K-Dog can use a down day to recover from the stress of living with a pneumatic nailer for the past two days...

6/11 dinner: Ruby Tuesday's

Kitchen renovation: Flooring!

The flooring is beautiful!! Today they did a " bowling alley" swath (the width of the hallway) from one end of the house, all the way down the hall and into the two hall closets.

The owner of the company that's doing the work came by this morning and determined that the short end of the L-shaped knee wall (where the railing used to be) came over too far and made the stairway too narrow at the top, so they hacked a couple inches off. They also put baseboard on the knee wall today. The drywall and painting guys will need to come back to fix the knee wall now, but it's not a lot.

More flooring tomorrow...

6/9 dinner: J-Mav and I went to Red Robin. I don't even know what Hubby and Keeper Boy did... I think they went to Taco Bell. Keeper Boy was subbing for another high school team last night and there was no time to grab dinner all together between the Nats game and the hockey game.

6/10 dinner: Ham (pre-cooked) and mashed potatoes and peas in the microwave. Couldn't do anything on the grill or grill burner because it was MONSOONING.

Kitchen renovation: paint... again

The painters had "about four hours" of work to finish up today. We left the house just before 8 for our day of sports. The painters were to arrive sometime between 8:30 and 9. They were still here when we got home after 4. So much for four hours. But I will say it looks great! AND, they painted all of the trim and baseboards AND our doors in the hallway!! Woot! Woot!

Here's a sneak peak at the flooring (all those green boxes in the pictures above):

6/8 dinner: Burgers on the grill, mac & cheese on the grill burner, and sliced watermelon

Kitchen renovation: paint!

Came home to "macadamia" painting the walls! And more spackle on top of that?!? Not sure. Anyway, here's what it looks like. Flooring starts Monday!

6/7 dinner: leftovers from the fridge while we watched a movie... Here Comes the Boom.

Kitchen renovation: paint... Tomorrow

No paint yet... Lots of drywall patching and spackeling today. I think painting will start tomorrow and conclude on Saturday. Exciting! Oh, and the rest of the carpet and icky tile was pulled up in the hallway and at the top of the stairs, too... As well as the last bits of linoleum in the middle of the kitchen. All set for the floor install to start on Monday. Flooring is supposed to be delivered tomorrow!

Laundry Room

As the kitchen renovation is ongoing upstairs, we are still finishing up the things we said we'd do on our own (as opposed to paying the contractor) DOWNSTAIRS. While the bathroom has been done for a few weeks (other than painting the door), we still needed to finish the laundry room, paint and rehang all of the doors along the hallway (two closets are done, but still need to do the bedroom, the laundry room, and the furnace space), paint the door out to the garage, reinstall shelving in both of the closets, and finish the trim around the furnace space (after the doors are hung, which is turning out to be an issue).

Anyway, last night we finished the laundry room. And I love it! Hubby cut a shelf out of thick particle board. He fashioned supports for it to sit on out of leftover window trim (my dad will be proud). It's a great surface for folding laundry and who knows what else. It does, however, boldy illustrate how not "square" our house is, as the shelf itself is level. We installed a new hang bar where there used to be shelves. So now I can reclaim our spare bedroom downstairs and put everything back in the laundry room that is supposed to be there. Very exciting!!

Kitchen Renovation: More drywall...

I walked in the house to a completed knee wall where the upper railing used to be, the frame of the island, and no power. Although the power outage had nothing to do with our contractors.

The view from the landing just inside the front door

Same wall from the other side

Island!

Tomorrow: Finish the drywall taping/mud and PAINT!!

6/5 dinner: The plan is salmon on the grill, rice on the grill burner, and a veggie in the microwave. J-Mav is at his BFF's house and is eating there. 

Kitchen renovation: drywall and paint!

Today they worked on drywall fill-ins, and we went to "visit" our granite slabs and pick our paint color. The guys intend to finish the drywall tomorrow and paint on Thursday!!!

Here's the granite from which our counters and island top will be cut. We still LOVE it (which is a very good thing!)

The walls in the dining room, living room, and hallway will soon be "Macademia." (Sherwin Williams 6142 if you feel so inclined to look it up.)

6/5 dinner: I got salmon out to cook on the grill, but didn't feel like it when I got home. Keeper Boy didn't want to go eat, so J-Mav, Hubby, and I went to Dogfish Ale House. Yummy.

Kitchen renovation: Plumbing?

I'm not really sure what was done today, but they were here working most of the day. I think they moved the pipes for the sink, moved the phone wires, did some preliminary drywall stuff, and I don't know what else. Nothing picture-worthy.

I'll be glad when all the little stuff is done so we can start seeing real progress each day!

6/3 dinner: pasta on the grill burner and Italian bread

Kitchen Renovation: Weekend

Second weekend with no kitchen...

6/1 dinner: Five Guys with Jack's baseball team
6/2 dinner: steak on the grill, asparagus in the electric skillet, baked potatoes in the microwave

And they're off...

My parents each traveled with their besties this past week.

Dad was off to Maine for his annual week of volunteer work at some railroad up there. He goes every year with his friend M and M's brother. They usually complete several small or a couple large projects while they are there... Re-roofing a caboose, for example.

Mom was off to New Orleans with her friend K. They also take an annual trip, usually while my Dad is in Maine. Previous trips have included Puerto Rico and Las Vegas. It sounds like they ate and drank their way through NOLA and had a great time in the process. They were unable to do as much walking as they liked as Mom is currently hindered by plantar fasciitis and K is preparing to undergo hip replacement surgery soon. But it sounds like they still did some very cool "riding" tours.

They may actually be home for a few days or weeks before they take off in their retirement mobile again...