Dirty ol' cat

Why do naughty kittens go everywhere they are not supposed to? My can, Berry, decided to roll in a pile of sawdust.


Those are not stripes, it's layers of sawdust. Great job cat.

PAINT!

YEAH!!! Love the color of my new kitchen. We used "Spanish Moss" by Martha Stewart.




In the back room, we used Behr Paint's "Hazelnut Cream." I hate to paint wood, but we painted all the trim white to match the rest of the house. Literally, all the trim in this house is white, inside and out!


Yeah girl!

Sheet rock is up, insulation is in

We are getting there! Feels pretty good to see the walls go back up.




Roark's checkin' it out

I Wanna Rock!

Sheetrock, that is. Sheetrock is going up now! YEAH!


I WANNA ROCK!


I wanna rock and roll all night, and part of everyday!

It takes a village...

Trucks and trucks

At one point this week, there were four different construction crews at my house. We had our general contractor, the plumbing crew, my dad's electric crew, and the gas-line crew, all working at my house on the same day. So much got done! It feels great to see this thing coming along. At this rate, we'll be done well before the new baby arrives!

Windows! Doors!

Only I could get this excited about some freakin' windows and doors. On Friday, our contractor installed a new bay window in the front, new entry way door, a set of french doors going out to the back yard and two panel picture windows. The amount of light that this lets into the room is amazing.


Our contractor, Bill Darling, with the front window and door in place


Starting to look like a real room now...


French doors!

Hole in My House!

Chip standing in the house-hole

Diggin' holes

My street had to be dug up to run a gas line to the house.

What a mess. I had no idea running a gas line to the house would be so involved. It will all be worth it when I get to cook on a gas burner instead of electric. I grew up cooking on a gas stove. The first time I ever had an all-electric range was when I moved into this house. I can't tell you how many grilled cheeses I've scorched since then trying to get used to electric. I can not wait to go back to cooking with gas!

Beauty

This bad girl is sitting in my garage right now... can't wait 'til I'm cooking on it!


What a babe

Raise the Roof!

We decided to go for it...

We are literally raising the roof in the breezeway area. We decided to do a tongue and groove pine ceiling, which will look awesome with the field stone walls that are already there.

Sweet antlers brah!

So excited to see how this comes out!

Let's Talk About Cabinets

Finding the right kitchen cabinets is a daunting task. Cabinets are basically the epicenter of organization in a kitchen and the layout needs to be both functional and aesthetically pleasing. The cabinets need to fit and function, withstand the test of time and hopefully not put you in the poorhouse! We found that when redoing our kitchen, the expense of the cabinetry was much more than expected. Who knew a few boxes of wood could be so expensive, right? There is a huge range of cabinetry options out there, and when I began my search, I literally had no idea what to expect. You can go custom, semi-custom, or get standard, off-the shelf cabinets.


Custom Cabinets by Bucks County Furniture. *le sigh

I love the look of custom, built in cabinets, but I didn't love the price tag. If we ever decide to leave our house for a larger place, maybe we would splurge on some custom-built cabinets, but for now it's not in the cards. The benefit of customs cabinets is that they are made to fit exactly in the space that you have. Since all the space is utilized, you maximize your storage capabilities. Furthermore, you can design everything just how you want it! I found a few really nice custom cabinetry makers in Bucks County PA, but of all of them, these guys were my favorite.

We ended up going with cabinets from Solid Wood Cabinetry Co. Initially, my experience with the company was beyond terrible, but after we complained multiple times and finally talked to the manager's manager, things got settled and I'm very excited for my cabinets to arrive. I am an easy going person, and not a complainer so you can imagine what we went through at Solid Wood Cabinetry to make me have to fuss and fight so much. At some point I am going to write out the whole story, but for now, here's a pic of the cabinets we picked out:


Bryn Mawr Shaker-style cabinets from Solid Wood Cabinetry Co.

This is a pic I took of them in the showroom... hopefully they look as nice in my house!

Wide Open Space

Walls are down! So amazing to see the space transform. I knew there was a lot of wasted space behind those walls, but seeing it all wide open really drives it home


Berry and Cookie cat explore a bit


Taking the walls out allows the light to stream in


This is how I feel with all the new space!

Pandora's Box

You never know what you're going to find when the walls come down. Our demo did not reveal anything too trecherous. Lucky for us, the walls that needed to be removed were not load bearing, so they came down easily. There was a rouge heating vent in one of the walls, which will need to be moved. When the yellow linoleum came off the walls, it revealed a very '50's but kinda pretty red wall paper. I guess the kitchen had been updated in the distant past, contrary to my previous belief!


Never knew this was behind the linoleum the whole time!


Dark, scary cabinets take their final bow

We put our old cabinets up on Craigslist for the grand price of "free to a good home." Chip had literally sixty responses within an hour! We gave them away that night to a young man with a large facial tattoo. A family member of his had recently bought a house and when she went to move in, she found that some kids had trashed her kitchen beyond repair. He took the cabinets to help her restore her kitchen on the cheap. We felt good that the cabinets were going to help someone and even better that they would not be taking up space in the dumpster.


One man's trash is another man's treasure

Sledgehammer!

It's amazing how much demo can get done in a day. My contracter must be a Peter Gabriel fan.




The walls are coming down!


NO! Don't bring them back!!