Pantries all around!!

Well this is a little bit backwards but if you go to the bottom of the post you will see the progress of the pantry almost to completion..

Progress, Progress... and by the way my toe is healing nicely.

Todays project... paint the shelf boards for the pantry... this means that yet again I will be setting up saw horses in the living room.. thank goodness there is plenty of space.. Installing the pantry shelves is pretty high on the priority list this weekend.. if it will actually happen remains to be seen.. Eventually (within the next week or so) we will be able to order our kitchen cabinets.. they will be made out of knotty alder (the door pictured is clear alder) and the countertop will be silestone (I think).. things have a way of changing just when you think you have made up your mind and have a plan... haha

The kitchen has changed a bit.... We moved the tower of shelving out of the center of the floor to make room for working with the long wood for baseboards and pantry shelving. The kitchen is minimal to say the least but completely liveable...

Yes... the curtains are temporary! haha.. but aren't they fabulous?

I couldn't sleep a couple of nights ago, so I got up at 3 am and decided to finish the brown bag treatment on the wall below... it took a couple of hours but it's done.. now all I have left to do is the walls in the kitchen.. It shouldn't take too long and then the "brown bag wonderfulness" will be done. yippee!!!

The is one of 2 shelves that we are using for "kitchen cabinets" and while it's close to the kitchen it seems pretty far away when you are cooking.

Below is the 1920's light fixture that Steve rescued out of a home in Paradise that they were disassembling and selling off. It cost him all of $2 and he took the glass out, sanded it down and painted it, replaced the ceramic socket and wiring for the bulb and ... there you have it... one vintage 1920's porch lamp for a "night light" of sorts.

This area is the focus this weekend... shelves on the left and a lovely stack washer dryer to the right.. molding, trim, brown bag... then maybe I won't have to go out to the garage to do the laundry (on a side note.. it snowed last night and the garage is not attached to the house!)

This couch is just about the only thing in the house that hasn't moved since we put it in place..

Hope you enjoyed the progress update.. more to follow.. we continue to work at it little by little...

Our goal is to have this half done by our anniversary. Of course I did leave out the part about laying the wood floor and having to clear coat hundreds of feet of baseboard and moldings for the windows and doors and of course the stripping and refinishing of the doors for the laundry closet and pantry and did I mention the part about taking out the stone entry/landing by the front door? ... Seems the more I think about it the longer the list gets so I think I will go paint something.. :)

Brown bags, paint and one trip to the ER...

so... lot's of progress on the brown bag treatment..... it's super easy and comes out looking wonderfully textured and leathery... it's so easy that you can have your friends help or.. as my husband says "a caveman could do it"... haha..

Of course there are always little "snags" in the plan like the trip to the ER because your wife stepped on a nail that was hidden just under the bed at 9:30pm and her foot swelled up like a puffer fish by 3:30am.. which leaves you no other option than to get that tetnus shot and a nice dose of antibiotics when all you wanted was to have the sheet tucked in at the bottom of the bed before you went to sleep...

All things considered things are going along smoothly.. and no-one has lost a foot yet!

More to follow as this weekend will mean completion of the brown bags as well as prepping the "laundry closet" to receive the stack washer dryer... yes.. you heard right... one day soon I will not have to go to the garage (which is detached from the house) to do the washing..
I long for the day...

Update...

So... last night I came home from work and painted the pantry...
Beautiful!!! and only $5 from Home Depot's OOOPPPS paint :)

Then Steve and I tried out the Brown Bag treatment that we want to use on the walls. I think it's going to be pretty easy and look pretty amazing.

We are working on getting the kitchen cabinets on order but with the angles of the house they have to be custom made and all things must be double checked (a couple of times) ..

This week our lady contractor (Emily) has been busy under the house adding floor joists to resupport where needed.

OH!! we also scored on some fabulous Bruce natural T&G floor.... Saved ourselves about $3000. :) (15sf per box at a regular retail of $45 per box and our cost ended up being a mere $7 per box)

There is also the issue of the sloping floor by the sliding glass door and these tiles were also clearanced out from $2.75 a square to a mere $1.61 and I got to use my Lowes coupon at Home Depot which is hugely satisfying. On a side note... my husband exercised his power of veto on the tile in the picture above and it is in the back of my car to be returned to Home Depot... I guess you can't have everything in life.. :) I do love that man..

The tile will be a tribute to the vinyl that we will tear out in the bathrooms as it is the same shape.

Things should go pretty quickly from here. The drywall was the biggest hurdle in my opinion and I am not looking forward to ever finishing drywall again.

drywall, drywall, drywall...

Completely tired of the drywall experience but it is something that must be done.

Kitchen progress... it's really happening!

Well we are making good progress on the project and as you can see... last weekend was a big drywall weekend! Yippeeee!! I am very excited about this because it makes it look like you have done ALOT!!
The plan is for the stack washer/dryer to go in the "closet" next to the fridge and there will be lovely 5-panel doors on the closet and on the pantry (hopefully in lovely knotty alder to match the cabinets)

The fridge looks so happy in it's little cubby :)


And thus far this is what we have...

Thankfully the sink is reconnected to the drain so there is no more "watching the bucket" and we can just wash dishes to our hearts content.

I am optomistic about hooking up the dishwasher sometime before our anniversary (that would be the 4th of July) :)

6 more sheets of drywall are coming home in my husbands truck tonight and it looks like this weekend will be spend taking the paneling off of all walls in the dining room and living room and probably getting the drywall installed. Next step is the tape and texture which we are considering hiring out. It would be so nice to be to the point of paint in just a couple of weeks.

It's hard not to get ahead of yourself in this whole adventure but my husband is the temperance to my "youthful exhuberance" ... and thankfully so....

more to come soon

Blamming up the Walls

Framing up the walls for the closet that the stack washer and dryer will go into, along with the wall that will make the fridge look "built in" was done right in the living room. Having a large space to work inside the house (given the rainy days we have had lately) is really nice.

Always checking for level and plum :)


Measuring for the header that will hold the pocket door frames securely. My husband is quite possibly the funniest man in the world. The construction has not always been stress free but we sure do laugh alot.


And all we have to do is blam the header in!
While my husband was sleeping this morning I brougt the pocket door frames into the house and set them in place. I am so excited... it's like christmas.
So the header and the door frames are not officially installed yet but it is 7 a.m. on sunday so I would say that by the end of the day all that you see will be sound. You can also see that we put in connections for the water and electrical to hook up the washer and dryer next to the fridge and that "closet" will have it's own door that will match the pocket doors, tying it all together.

Next phase will be install lights in the pantry ceiling, drywall the pantry and build the shelving. Then we can move all of this
into the pantry and drywall the kitchen, living room and dining room.
It's going to be a big mess.. I can't wait to start the drywall but I also can't wait for it to be finished.