It's About Time ...

We decided to upgrade our kitchen. After weeks months of prepping food off a slab of plywood, we finally had countertops installed, taking our kitchen from this:

To this:

(I realize that would've been more impressive with daylight, but I forgot to take that identical shot when the sun was still out)

Here's the countertop basking in some evening light

Yea, we're pretty much smitten. Granite is quite the upgrade from what we were working with before.

I like how it works with the dark floors. We wanted something light for the counters to really let the floor pop, yet it needed a warm quality to pull it all together.

Way more counter space than before! We're not sure what we'll use this for exactly, but we were thinking it might serve as a nice spot for a laptop, a place to dish up food, or some fresh flowers.

And yea, we're totally aware of the "birthmark." At least it's evidence that it's an authentic and unique piece of granite.

Humor me, and spin around and check out the stove area

In my final reveal post (yet to come!) I will have to post a side-by-side shot of this with our previous stovetop area.

The view when I enter the kitchen for my nightly bowl of yogurt and granola. (Note: end buffet peeking in on the left is no longer with us ... she's in the garage waiting for a new owner)

I love how the two rooms now feel somewhat connected. The table is a new Craigslist purchase, by the way. The table itself isn't much of an improvement over our last one, but six solid wood chairs were worth the $120 price tag alone. Note: kitchen cart has been demoted to the laundry room.

We have this counter area arranged somewhat differently already, but this gives you a sense of space.

Now we just have to finish up on some odds and ends. Like painting the baseboards, finish installing the trim around the top of the upper cabinets, paint the trim around the window, find a cute pendant light, and finish off the bracket holding up the wrap-around. I can't wait to put up some artwork on the walls, and we're planning on introducing a vibrant pendant, and possibly some fun curtains above the sink.

(Note: we have since fixed the dishwasher so it is parallel and level with the surrounding cabinets. The granite installers couldn't figure that out but Evan and I could, funny how that works ...)

Oh, and it's called China Gold, from Midwest Granite (through Ikea) - the cheapest granite option available!

Walls are painted Benjamin Moore, Moonshine. It's the perfect shade of gray.

And since I'm a perfectionist and can't stand the fact that I've skipped a few monumental occasions with this lil' kitchen renovation, let me finish out this post with a little award ceremony:

The award for first out-of-state visitor in da (almost) finished kitch goes to my grandma! 

As you can see, this was pre-countertop. But it met her approval!

And biggest helper goes to Denny (and Mary) - Evan's parents. When E had given up on tackling some final steps ourselves, big D stepped in. Here he is installing the base trim. (Funny how E will happily tackle electrical and plumbing work, ripping up the floor, and hanging sheetrock, but when it comes to some of the basics he out, haha).

(Sorry, I don't have a face shot)

Out littlest helper:
Lillian, at 7 mo.

Although she definitely upped the cute factor of our work crew, it was really Lily's parents, Josh and Jena, who drove all the way up from La Crosse to help us get the cabinets hung.

 

And let me introduce you to Mark Mann, aka The Boss, who most definitely deserves the award for handiest! I would be lying if I said we did this entire kitchen renovation on our own. The truth is, we hired a handyman to lead us through the project. Evan was part of every step of the renovation, and we did lots of work ourselves (like installing the cabinets on our own) but it was definitely nice having someone with a little experience to learn from. Maybe this means the next time we're renovating a kitchen we'll be pros! Haha. Here he is with his two sons, who stopped by one day.

I'll be sure to keep ya posted when we tackle our final projects and can call this kitchen dunzo. Hopefully that is sooner than later!

Read up on the entire kitchen renovation project here

One Month of Eating Out

Okay, so we haven't really been eating out for a full month, since we've had our stove back in the kitchen for the last week or two, but we have been a bit out of sorts in our meal planning and preparations for the past four weeks. Scrambled eggs, simple pasta dishes, and brats on the grill have been staples around here. And endless bowls of cereal. But it's all been worth it. You see, this past Saturday officially marked one month since we said adios to yellow laminate counters, saw-dusty cabinets, and a windowless kitchen.

And said hello to fresh white cabs, rich brown floors, and a glorious window:

As you can see, we still have work to do. Namely: installing a granite counter (which won't happen for another few weeks since it's on backorder), framing out the window, adding crown molding to the cabinets, finish installing the drawers, adding drawer pulls and door knobs, finishing off the floors with base trim, reattaching one ceiling light, and a whole lot of painting. Note: since I started writing this post Saturday morning we've checked some of those items off our list! I'll share those updates and more soon!

Here's a glimpse at what we've been up to this past week and a half since my last post.

One night Evan and I wrestled these tall refrigerator sideboards into our kitchen. You think I'm kidding about the wrestling? These things were the heaviest, most awkward part of the entire project, and here we were at 11pm, E probably on 4 hours of sleep, and we're trying to carry them in through a tight side door. And we didn't have to do it once, but rather a total of four times, since each board had to be measured in place and then brought outside to be cut (above photo is before cutting, as you can see by how far it sticks out on the sides). On one of these occasions we had a little friend who just had to get in on the action.

Seriously the biggest flying bug I've seen ... looked more like a flying cockroach really. Needless to say, this caused a slight delay in our project while E and I both ran around, arms flailing, voices pitched a little higher than normal, trying to figure out how to get him out of the house. (Scenes from our recent bee situation came to mind.) I had the brilliant plan of turning out all the lights, then flipping one on and hope that he was like a moth and drawn to the light. But we both decided that walking around the house in the dark with a huge beetle underfoot wasn't the best plan of attack, and luckily we found him huddled in the corner anyway, so we scooped him up and tossed him outside. Cuz we're nice like that.

By the end of the night, we had the refrigerator nook ready, complete with overhead cabinet! (Actually, at this point, I don't think those sideboards were actually fastened in place...)

You know you want to see where Evan plans on stashing his cow collection:

Other highlights from the past couple weeks include some plumbing work:

 

Above left is when we installed the dishwasher. See the copper wire twisted around the screw in between the orange caps? Finally those years of making jewelry back in gradeschool paid off. For me, not for Evan. In case you were wondering.

That sink was a pain to install. We had leaks a few nights later and had to re-do the process. We've been told we'll have to undo it again when the countertop is installed. At least we're Evan is getting practice.

Yes! Dishwasher in working order! For those of you who haven't shared a meal at our house, I'll fill ya in on a little secret. Evan is pretty protective of his dishwashers. In fact, he's so particular of how we load the dishes that he often unloads whatever I've put in to rearrange the whole thing!

Why hello Mr. Primer. Actually, this is a paint and primer in one I used since we already had it on hand. (Once upon a time I was planning on painting our old cabinets ... yea, that didn't happen).

One Saturday evening, after we spent the day driving all over the metro for various odds and ends, I whipped out my trusty paint brush and got to work preparing our new base trim. We had to buy three separate pieces to create something that mimics the rest of the trim in our house. They just don't make 'em like they used to! (Note: I only used the above paint brush for two seconds before switching out to a high density foam roller and my short-handled angled brush to get in the grooves.)

Pretty sunset ... squint and the ugly wire disappear. 

 And the next morning I was back at it, this time with a trusty cup of coffee in my hand. And for those of you who don't know, C + coffee = crazytown. Not a typical morning activity for me, but I absolutely love it, so I had to indulge. And contrary to what my cup may have you believe, there was no kahlua in my coffee.

I know this is a long post, but we gotta keep truckin. We're behind folks! And it's 10:52pm and I'm missing the Olympics for this. (women's gymnastics too! ... don't worry, I have it recording)

 Example A of what happens when C has coffee:

No, I was simply trimming some of the toe boards that fit under the cabinets. Our handyman left his saw at our house, and it's quite the contraption where it turns into a collapsable table that you can wheel away. I told Evan we should buy a cool saw like that for our anniversary this year (which is Saturday!). The gift for #5 is wood ... so I thought it was fitting. E said it's a little sinister and suggested we buy a tree instead. 

 

This is the piddly stuff we had fun doing almost every night for about a week. Gradually assembling the shelves, doors and drawers to the cabinets (photo on the right) and installing the cabinet toe board (on the left). We learned a few things along the way: when your floor isn't completely level it's hard to install a perfectly level toe board. And sometimes a rickety wire basket can make your spouse go crazy and result in multiple trips to Ikea. True story.

Mr. E has become quite the perfectionist. Here he is inspecting a piece of wood. I wonder if that's what his "teacher eye" looks like?

Other piddly projects include installing the side panels to the cabinets and the extension under the cabinets, to give it that nice finished look and to hide our under cab lights. 

This too, involved a trip to Ikea (we weren't sure if they were supposed to overhang or be trimmed to fit), and of course an obligatory $1 frozen yogurt.

And last project for this post: some electrical work. You know how fun it is to set the mood when you're cooking, so we had to install some under cabinet lights. Actually, Mark and Evan did most of this during the day (including some in-cabinet lights for our glass shelves) but we had to finish up next to the stove. Mark had the brilliant idea to remove the nails from these little plastic staples and insert screws in their place, so that you can screw those suckers up into the cabinets instead of fighting gravity while hammering up. I'm sure there was another reason, but that was good enough for me.

And then it was the weekend. And we said goodbye to house projects forever and ran away to the sea!

Actually it was just Lake Pepin and we were only gone a day. But it was fun sailing with Mr. E's long-time high school friend and forgetting about kitchens for a while.

I'll be back soon!

Read up on the first half of our kitchen renovation project: day 0, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, the big window day, and renovating with a baby (aka, our friends help us install cabinets)

The Madness Continues

 In case you've been wondering from our silence these past two weeks if we decided to throw in the towel on our kitchen renovation project, give up on homeownership and move in with our parents, I am here to tell you that we're plugging away on kitchen pierson and we're alive and well, albeit very very tired (as demonstrated by Evan's lovely laser photo above ... this was Tue night at 11:30pm after having been up since 3:15am). As for me, I've started to loose the thrill of my nightly "washing the dishes in the tub" routine.

But I'm just thankful we now have our microwave installed, and the other night we finally put our stove back in place. I even scrambled up some eggs and bacon tonight as a celebration (followed by the washing of way too many dishes in the tub). This photo cracks me up:

Right now Evan is busy getting some much-needed shut eye (seriously, the guy sleeps 3-4 hours at a time, followed by a shift at the airport or kitchen duty - or both!) so it's up to little ol' me to recap our adventures these past few weeks. The problem is, for the most part I've been at work during the day so haven't witnessed the nitty gritty steps in person. But I have a ton of photos to share so I'll just have to make up what I don't know. ; )

Hold on to your seatbelts folks, as I take you on one crazy ride inside the walls of our kitchen to take a peak at our plumbing! What? Not the eye candy you were hoping for? I'll make it fast.

Evan and Mark (the handyman) actually did some impressive and essential work on our old kitchen plumbing. I heard one of our old pipes was completely filled with rust and plain old grossness. So thankfully they took the extra steps to get 'er done the right way. This photo is where the sink used to sit, backed up against the bathroom. (Dad, you might recognize these pipes!)

They also spent a day working on electrical. In the morning when I left for work they were debating where we place our overhead recessed lights.

If you can tell by the sketch, we were debating between having the lights evenly spaced in block formation and having them staggered. 

We placed flags on the ceiling to help us visualize it (I think this is the staggered look). Notice the light above the window is for a future pendant light.

In the end we opted for the even block formation, but splurged on six recessed lights. We ended up getting LED lights (not sure the brand) but they are supposed to last for 20 years or something crazy like that, and then you replace the entire thing. Between those lights (which are on a dimmer!) and the window, we are just basking in all the light.

 They did a lot of electrical work, actually, installing multiple new boxes, switches, and moving around some floor/wall vents. Evan really loves putting on the electrical hat. I think he'd much rather do that than tape and plaster the walls or even paint! Just look at that concentration ...

Next up: drywall! Not a fun step but it sure does clean things up! (There's insulation wrapped in plastic underneath those walls.) On the right you can see the little pony wall at the end of the counter that will carry the countertop around to the backside for a little extra sitting area or serving of meals when we host T-day.


I've shown this angle of the room many times, so here you can see that pony wall (and all the outlets!). Check out the floor where our old cabinets used to sit - you can see the outline! Oh, and all of the blue chalk lines were so they knew where the studs were, I do believe.

Having fun sealing up those lines. He ranks this right up there with caulking ... aka, he'd rather eat tofu.

Before this post gets too dry I better add something shiny, glossy and brown for you to ooh and ahh over. I know that I did when I came home to this sight:

I'm loving our laminate flooring! It was a real cinch to put together too. Denny (E's dad) and I did a good portion of the dining room last weekend, so I got my share of selecting our "pattern" (we have a non-pattern pattern), clicking it in place, then tapping it with a mallet to ensure a seamless fit. But as you can see, Evan did a lot of it most of it.

Finally, at long last it was time to install our cabinets! Last weekend Evan's good high school friend Josh, and his wife Jena and baby Lilian drove up to help us hang some cabs ...

But of course baby pictures always come before cabinet photos!

Yes, I did help out! Jena and I, priming the walls.

Getting ready to hang everything above and around the stove

As I said, he loves that electricity!

Tonight we installed some drawers in one of the cabinets, Evan bought baseboards for the room, he spent some time fixing/adjusting a few things, and is gearing up for a big day tomorrow: hanging the big cabinet above the fridge (hooking up the fridge?!), installing two sideboards, possibly installing our new dishwasher, and ... well there's a long list yet, so I'm sure he'll think of something. Our main handyman will be back for a day or two soon but besides that, it's just team Pierson going forward and any willing parties who come to our door. Wait, that sounded a little creepy. Any willing parties we can entice with pizza and beer : )

Read up on the first half of our kitchen renovation project: day 0, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 4, and the big window day