Friday, November 20, 2009

Cabinets, Counters, and Everything (well, almost everything)

We now have a kitchen. It'll be a working kitchen by the end of the day.

Last week we had our cabinets installed.



We were happy even then, because we just put boards on top of the open lower cabinets to make counter space for the week.

Then yesterday the counter guys came. They did the final cuts to the stone in our driveway (luckily it was done yesterday because today it is pouring Texas-style).




All said and done, this is what they left us with:





Now we have some work to do.

The gas line sticking out of the cabinets is preventing us from pushing the range back into place.


The outlet up above the cabinets needs to be sealed over or moved. There's a box behind the range that we can return to it's formal state as an outlet. Once that's taken care of, we need to install the range vent hood.



Above the sink we have an electrical quandary. We removed the previous fixture that had a built in switch and bought a new one to replace it that does not have said switch (unaware of the problem at the time of purchase).



As for the sink itself, the drain and garbage disposal need to be installed.

Our dishwasher needs to be installed (so that I can transfer the pile of dirty glasses in our utility sink to it and therefore avoid doing dishes).



And then, yes yes yes, we'll have a fully functional kitchen! Beyond function, we need a backsplash of some sort to add some color, a window frame above the kitchen, the transition piece installed, and the base molding affixed to the breakfast bar thingy.



Monday, November 9, 2009

It's All Here!

Our cabinets arrived today.



It gets even better.

Before Anita, the kitchen lady, had left, the furniture arrived!



Monday, November 2, 2009

Moving on Up!

We now have tile and doors, which means all of the biggies that Chris and I had to do are pretty much done. Our kitchen should be installed this week, if everything goes according to plan--just in time for our weekend guests, in town for Paul and Laurel's wedding. We still have some minor things to do such as molding, quarter-round, small paint jobs, etc., but the end is in sight!

Between projects,





we went outside to take a break. While looking around at the back garden to determine what shrubs needed trimming (out of desparation we hired a gardener to do a one time mow and trim because we don't have any garden tools yet, including a mower), we noticed that our shrubs were the victims of a hostile takeover. We began our counter-attack...









and succeeded.