The NEW kitchen!!!

Ok, it's done. Seriously, it's done. EVERYTHING!!! We've been functional in the kitchen for a few weeks now but they had lots of little things to do. Fix the threash hold, fix a drawer, touch up paint, etc. Well they finished the last little bit yesterday and now it's done!!!

I'm honestly not trying to brag or anything but it's stunning!!! I walk in and I'm still in awe, I feel like I live in a magazine. This has truly been a blessing and I've loved the people that have gotten us to this point. It's been a stressful process but overall a positive experience.

We were going to have a party to show everyone but it's just not in the cards. So here's the big reveal :)

We're ALMOST there!!!!

Sorry, I still do not have permission to post pictures but I do want to give an update. We are inches from the finish line!!! The painting was completed last week which was the last major construction thing we needed done. Ev installed most of the appliances this weekend (thanks to Dan & Ang for helping with the heavy lifting) and is installing the dishwasher as we speak ~ the last one to go in. Can I just say how much I love that my husband can do handy things like that. All that's left is minor details here and there. Even though we have appliances we can't cook yet because we have no pots, pans, knives, etc. We have to wait for the smoke cleaning people to return all that on Thursday. So if all goes according to plan we should have a home cooked meal on FRIDAY!!!

I can't wait to cook on my new range. It's dual fuel so I have a gas cooktop. I have NEVER had a gas cooktop. Never in married life, never growing up, NEVER. I can't wait for instant heat and instant shut off. I feel so pro :) Since I can't post with out pictures here's what the backyard looked like while they were painting! They stretched out two huge ladders over buckets and laid all the doors on the ladders ~ then sprayed. We now have 30 doors and 11 drawers. A major upgrade from the 3 drawers we had in the old kitchen. Now we can actually have a junk drawer :)

The kitchen cabinets are in!!!

And they are GORGEOUS!! I love the appliance garage, the crown molding on the top, and the soft close drawers. Even when you try to slam the drawers they WON'T!!!! I've had so much playing with those. It looks like we have another week and a half to two weeks left so we are in the home stretch. We still have to do tile on the floor and backsplash (2-3 days), countertops (1 day), paint the cabinets & walls (3-4 days), finish electrical (1 day) and trim everything out. So we are in the home stretch, baby!

I would love to post pictures of what the kitchen looks like now, but by special request of my husband I can not. We are going to have a kitchen party once it's done with all of our friends and family and Ev really wants everyone to be surprised by the finished project. For those of you that are far away or can't make it here, once the kitchen is done and it's been revealed (oooohhh, ahhhhhh) I'll post pictures :)

I will post a picture of the cabinets as they brought them in for assembly . . .

Quick update

Well as of late last week we had walls and a ceiling again! Last Wednesday we had the drywall installed and then Thursday they textured the walls & ceiling. It looks like a real room again. Today is the last day that this room will be this empty ~ got word this morning that the cabinets are coming TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!! I'M BEYOND WORDS EXCITED!!!! Can you tell???


In prep for the new cabinets (including a new bank of cabinets in the dining area) we ripped out the railing that divides the family room from the kitchen area. It looks SOOOOO different.

A kitchen update

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. I've been too busy living life to blog about it :)

Here's a bit about where we are on the kitchen. We made all of our decisions and I picked out everything I wanted in a kitchen with no ideas on what the pricing was. When the pricing finally came back from Matt our builder ~ it was a little high (chuckle, chuckle no it was ah . . . way out of the budget.) So we had to make some modifications! I sacrificed a few things (the granite I REALLY wanted) we made a few adjustments and tweaks and picked out some new materials. That process took a bit. But all the decisions were made and I'm THRILLED with all our choices.

This week a lot of progress was made.

Ev tore out the old linoleum flooring to make way for our new tile:


Before he could tear it out we let the kids have a marker party on the floor:


Ev tore it out this past weekend 1/7 & 1/8
Then they came in this week Mon - Wed and redid the electrical. They put in the recessed lighting (one of the things I was praying would fit in the budget ~ and it DID!) and rewired & positioned all the switches and brought everything up to code. The inspector came on Wed and all was well!

My new switches are GFI (don't know what that means) and have cool lights on them :)

Recessed lighting and the ceiling all ripped out:

The whole kitchen is sealed off with plastic and then zippers at all the doors so we can zip it open when there's no construction and then they can zip it closed while they're working. We were getting sick of the plastic look so the kids and I took a whole afternoon to die cut snowflakes and decorate one of the sheets of plastic:

We continued on with the marker party and decorated another doorway :)

the A-1 asbestos guys chipped in when we weren't looking and left us a smiley!

With the open ceiling and no walls it got pretty cold in the house. They just came out today and put in insulation ~ it's much warmer now! I'll post those pics later.

The kitchen scoop

Well a lot's changed since that initial kitchen photo. We first thought we wouldn't even put in a claim as we have a pretty high deductible. Our insurance broker recommended a collegue (sp?) of his that specializes in fire construction come over and give us his thoughts before we made our decisions. Matt from Regional Builders came over the next day at 8pm after a long day in court (not his court case but as an expert witness) He impressed us right away and had some really good recommendations. Basically whatt it all boiled down to was that nothing could be patched ~ we had to replace flooring, tile and cabinets. Add into that aspestos & smoke cleaning and a call to our insurance was a no brainer.

We still had a working oven and decided that we would still like to have a partial kitchen for Christmas morning so we held off on the demo. The smoke cleaning went ahead as planned before the holidays and yesterday (1/5/09) the demo started. A-1 remediation came out today and finished the demo ~ taking the kitchen down to the studs in some areas. It's barren in there. I was able to post some before & during pictures. I will keep you updated throughout this process. We still have some big decisions to make and hopefully no strife will occur between myself and Ev because we're such opinionated people :)

Gotta say one of the things I'm happiest about so far is how pleasant all of the contractors have been ~ i haven't had to deal with a typical rude, brash contractor attitude. Everyone has been great! Can you tell I didn't have pleasant contractor experiences during our house flip???


BEFORE DEMO
AFTER DEMO
BEFORE DEMO
AFTER DEMO

The latest adventure

So the latest thing to happen was a kitchen fire. I put on a teapot for tea and went outside to play with Micah for a few. without going into all the details because I don't feel like typing it all out :) The house was filled with smoke and there were flames in the kitchen. The smoke was too thick that after a minute of trying I had to go out and call the fire department.

We spent six hours last night cleaning. There was a layer of soot on EVERYTHING and the whole house reeks of smoke ~ Giving me a headache. So these are the pictures after we scrubbed it. The tile is burned, the cupboards are burned and the floor is burned. Then the walls & cabinets above are blackened from smoke and bubbled.

It could have been A LOT, A LOT worse, but it was still very scary to experience.