This is life without a kitchen

Lots to report since the last update!

Some pictures of the recent work

Action shot of some prelim spackeling---although we're hiring a pro to finish. I can take care of the nail holes

A more finished almost clean slate.

Today I'm happy to announce that we've completed sheetrocking the kitchen and half bath! Just taping, prime & painting and refinishing the floors till we can install our kitchen cabinets...which brings us to the next topic -- Cabinets!

Our cabinets came on March 16th and thus we had to find some room for them while we finish the construction phase of the project. The sunroom, my office, off the living room was the chosen space for the cabinets. Luckily they are stackable cardboard boxes, but they literally take up the entire sunroom.  Recently our faucet/soap dispenser/sink combo came in as well adding to the pile.  Can't wait to install all of these really soon! This is life...

Cabinets are here!

To the left is our sink/faucet combo....lots of cabinets

Living without a kitchen has been okay, but really looking forward to having things back in one place. Our temporary sink has been holding up well and last night we made quite a feast.  We had beef tenderloin, mashed potatoes, bearnaise sauce, and roasted veggies. The veggies and beef were made on the grill, bearnaise on the grill sideburner (which has come in handy multiple times), mashed potatoes in the microwave.  Cooking on the weekend has been pretty good, but dinner during the week is pretty mediocre.  After coming home at 7 or 8pm sometimes it really just ice cream or scoops of peanut butter for dinner.  Really can't wait to get our new sparkling stainless steel appliances and cook/bake up a storm! It will also be nice to have a working kitchen, and hence -- a life, that does not involved waking up on Saturday & Sunday and heading to Home Depot. 

Between this week and last week Mom and I stripped an old pantry we found in the basement. In our initial kitchen layout at Lowe's we included a pantry but scrapped it for two reasons -- it broke up the space too much and was very expensive.  Luckily we had a great one sitting in the basement :-) and we will install it in the 1/2 bathroom. We are painting the pantry the same color as our kitchen cabinets.  I wish I had more/any pictures of the pantry before we stripped it, but o well. 

Pantry that was found on its side in the basement.

Still needs one more coat, but the door is looking good!

Currently we're trying to pick a paint colors for both the kitchen and 1/2 bath. As some of our friends know -- the first paint color we ever picked out was Ecto-Cooler/Green Screen Green for the master bathroom.  I'm too embarrassed to post pictures from the oops. Mom and Dad felt bad for us, so they helped us select a new paint color and also paid for the new paint :-). Since then we've basically only picked colors from the Restoration Hardware palette (Restoration Hardware - Paint). As my dad says they only have a few colors -- but they are so awesome.  I think they actually stopped giving their paint samples away for free -- but for $10 you can pick up the color fan deck. We currently have Atmosphere Blue (Guest Bedroom), Latte (Living Room & Hallway), Cappuccino (Dining Room & Stairwell) and Flax (Sunroom).  

Anyways here are some ideas:

1/2 Bath color scheme :-)

Still undecided on the kitchen.....

Also trying to finalize our lighting, cabinet hardware & vessel sink. Still much work to be done! This is life for now.

Granite Selection & Kitchen Update

It might just be me...but I think granite is so neat. I love how each piece is unique and striking.  Shopping for granite has also been somewhat of an exhausting process. My original thought during the quote phase of granite shopping was that prices were going to be generally in the same ballpark.  Well I can say, that is NOT true and I've gotten quotes that vary by the thousands!

I did find that selecting a granite color was neat.  Jeremy wanted marble in the kitchen, but due to the fact that his lovely wife consistently makes a disaster in the kitchen, the fact that marble finish dulls over time especially after coming in contact with citrus, and the fact his wife wanted granite...he lost.

So we compromised and decided to go for a light granite.  Here were some of our frontrunners.

Upper Left: Kasmir White, Upper Right: Harve$t Cream, Lower: Polar Ice (I think)

Here are some shots of how awesome granite is

Bianco Romano

More Bianco

Harvest Cream (seriously way too expensive for our kitchen)

Kasmir White

Today we finalized our granite and we picked the Bianco Romano. Here is what our slab will look like.

And one of these lucky ones will be for the bathroom vanity!

And probably what you've been waiting for! This is what the kitchen looks like. Sheetrock: IN PROGRESS!

How many men does it take to sheetrock the ceiling?

Review of the days work

Finally a kitchen update!

I know I know it has been a long time since we’ve updated our progress on the kitchen.  This kitchen renovation thing is exhausting and we’ve been fully consumed with it on the weekend.  J was traveling two weeks ago and I’ve been to Arizona last week and currently in Nebraska.   Last weekend we took the weekend off to ski for our beer league championships! It was a fun weekend of ski racing and a nice break from working on the kitchen. 

So here is what we’ve been upto the few weeks:

Dishwasher: came in and looks great! We can’t wait to use it. 

Cabinets: Have just arrived at the shipping company.  We originally delayed the production of the cabinets, since we that we knew we wouldn’t be ready for them.  We estimated we may be ready on March 7^th by my optimistic schedule.  The cabinet install will definitely not happen the weekend of March 10-11^th as originally planned, but hopefully soon after.  We are excited to see the new cabinets!

Floor: A few weekends ago Mom and I pulled up the plywood subfloor.  As suspected gorgeous hardwood underneath. We plan to refinish this. We’ll need install 40-50 square feet of new hardwood…no big deal.  We decided to go with hardwood for a few reasons--- first we love the look of hardwood.  Second I’ve searched high and low for tile that really excited me and we’ve found nothing.  J and I tend to like the blues and the tile that is made to look like slate. Unfortunately, that didn’t quite match as well with the granite picked out.  I brought many tile samples to the home and nothing excited me like the hardwood. So hardwood it is! I think the combination of the slightly off white cabinets with the contrast of the hardwood floor and the bianco romano will look fabulous.  Here is some inspiration:

photo courtesy of: http://www.granitegurus.com/2011/05/readers-kitchen-bianco-romano-granite.html

Here is a sample of both our granite & cabinets (color, not style):

Wood Floors:

Plumbing & Electrical:  We reconnected the sink in the kitchen, so no more washing dishes in the bathroom (I think we did this for 2 days).  Washing dishes in the kitchen makes a HUGE difference because the other options were bathroom sink or in the tub.  As for the plumbing and electrical -- everything takes longer than expected.  We added in some recess lights and they look great. Hiding the plumbing in the wall also opens up our space and it looks awesome as well. 

Our 30 yard dumpster was also picked up. I'd say we filled it well.

 

Now – we’re just getting ready to sheetrock!!   Thanks everyone for bugging me about an update!