Thursday, October 25, 2007

Where in the World???????????


Ok, so this is too cool. I went to Google Analytics to review the viewing trends for the blog. The attached map is from the review. Check out the "spots" in Europe and Asia. There have actually been a few people outside of the US that have checked out the blog. COOL!

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

All Done



Here's the video of the finished product. Thanks for joining us on our journey.
See ya!

Monday, September 10, 2007

The Beverage Center

Ok, so the beverage center is really cool. On the very top of the door's handle there is a button. Push it once, the door "clears" so that you can see what's inside. Push it again, it turns black. Cool, huh?

Each shelf holds 6 rows of 7 cans, (42 cans, right? LOL)

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Almost Done

We're almost done. Let's take a tour.

Friday, September 7, 2007

Ice, Ice, Baby


I am totally fascinated with the simplest thing... the fridge makes ice, serves it whole or crushed, and also provides filtered water. Mind you, these are all inventions of the 60's or 70's... I'm just getting them in the new millennium. Can you blame me for being excited?

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Fish-Eyes

Alan finished staining the trim and installing the kick plate on the dishwasher today. The very last item is the installation of the range (which should be this Saturday).












Views from the north (with Spike) and east (with Rocky)...












... and from the south and west. All shots were taken with a fish-eye lens. Click on any of the pictures to see them in a full screen. (If you enlarge the picture from the north, you'll see why I couldn't resist getting Spike... look at that face.)

Rounding Third...

Click on the picture


















It has taken quite a while to make a new post. The changes that occurred each day over the last two weeks were small and slightly incremental, but they've finally added up. Most of the appliances have been installed and we've pretty much moved back in. Over the last day or so we've been cleaning the kitchen and all of the other affected areas in the house. The old refrigerator has been taken out of the living room and was donated to someone that Alan knew.

What do I like about the new kitchen? Everything! It's too hard to pick a favorite aspect. The fridge is cool. I can select from crushed or whole ice and get filtered water. The beverage center is AWESOME... it can hold 126 cans of soda! We now have a double sink and it's nice and deep. The dishwasher whispers... you barely hear it. So many things to enjoy.

There are three remaining items: the installation of the range, the staining of the cabinet trim, and the installation of the kick plate for the dishwasher. The range will arrive on Saturday. Apparently they kept pushing back the release date of the range we wanted. The start of ship was in July, then August. Now it's September 22nd. So we opted to go with a different model. Man, if we kept changing ship dates like that in our industry, our customers would have our heads.

Stay tuned. More posts are on the way. By the way, if you didn't know this, clicking on any of the pictures on the blog blows them up in their own frame so that you can really see the pictures well.

So, Where Have I Been?

For our vacation we decided to visit a city neither one of us had been to; Seattle. The trip in and out made for awesome picture taking. Since I travel quite frequently I figured that I'd start using my iPhone to capture pictures of interesting things that I see from the plane. Here's what I caught going in to and leaving Seattle.

Mt. Ranier
(click on the pictures)

















As we were leaving the clouds were rolling in, only to be held back by the mountains outside of Seattle


Clouds gave way to clear skies...

Mountains gave way to plains...

... and a the quilted patchwork of land across Washington State on the way to Spokane.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

More Appliances













The dishwasher and beverage center came today. The microwave was also installed. I'm really liking this kitchen. This is so much better than what was originally in place. I really like how the addition of the cabinets under the east window brings that window into the kitchen. It gives the illusion that the space is much larger than it was. The stainless appliances look great for now, pre finger-prints). The backsplash pops. I think that Robin intended for the granite to be the focal point and shining star of the kitchen but every time I walk in, it's the backsplash that catches my attention. It's a great eye catching design.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

The First Appliance Arrives!

The refrigerator arrived on Friday. The one catch... french doors don't work well when the fridge is in the corner. Alan used the blue tape that you see on the fridge to write a note to me that says that the trip keeps the doors from opening all the way. The problem is actually the wall. It isn't a big problem. The door opens; you just can't swing it open all the way. The trim also blocks the freezer drawer. We can open it, but we have to yank it to the left away from the trim. Alan is going to redo the trim so that we don't have to do that. In the meantime, I'm glad to see something else in the space.

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Sunday, August 19, 2007

The Rumors are True!

Since my last post I asked Wesley to take pictures of the kitchen with his camera phone and send them to me. Here's what the kitchen looks like with counter tops. More to come when I get back to Minneapolis.























Rumor has it...

Rumor has it that the kitchen will be finished by mid week. Actually, it isn't a rumor. I mean, how can rumors get started in a household of only 2 people. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnyway...

The cabinets were installed on Thursday. I didn't see them because I left for the airport to travel shortly before they were delivered. (I'm posting this from a hotel in Fort Washington, PA.) I've been informed of the following:
  • The countertops have been installed and look great.
  • Boxes of tile for the backsplash have been delivered.
  • The trim and molding around all of the cabinets has been completed
  • The appliances will be delivered on Monday or Tuesday.
With all of this, the renovation should be completed this week!

Friday, August 10, 2007

Retrospective

The old kitchen.













After demolition.











Almost done.

Hardware















Here are pictures of the hardware for the cabinets.

Still waiting on the counter tops...

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Let there be Light!

Today was one of those days. I got home and assumed that nothing had really happened at the house while we were waiting on the counter tops. I'd been home about two hours and upon reentering the kitchen through the mudrrom after letting the dogs out, I noticed that electrical switches had been installed next to the basement door.

To my surprise and delight, the switches were live. The lights in the kitchen are now operational!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Dear Loyal Readers

Hi, sorry I've been away for a while but there were two reasons:
1) There really hasn't been much progress on the kitchen
2) In light of last week's tragedy I felt that posting details on my kitchen remodel seemed a bit trivial in comparisson.

Well, I'm back with several new posts for you to read. Enjoy.

JPE

Natural Stone

Robin sent over pictures of the slab that will be cut for our counter tops. I love the rich waves of color that extend throughout the stone. We anticipate delivery of the countertops this week. There has been a slight delay because we thought that the slabs were on hold; Robin definitely put them on hold. Somehow the supplier "lost" them. So, getting a new slab and measuring for it took a little longer than expected. Nevertheless I'm pleased with the slab that we finally got.









The backsplash will be a tumbled marble; rich in texture, neutral in color. The objective is to let the counter tops serve as the primary point of visual interest in the kitchen. The muted color of the backsplash will allow that to occur. The patter will be as follows:
- Two rows of subway tile separated by,
- One row of 1 inch decorative tile followed by,
- Two rows of square tile,
- Another row of 1 inch decorative tile,
- Two final rows of subway tile.







These are the decorative tiles that will be used. I'm excited about the use of the glass tile (the dark brown tiles) in the arrangement.

Up the Ladder to the Roof

When you live in an older home, you find that there are many things that previous owners/workers did to the hosue that just don't make any sense.

Per a previous post, we installed additional outlets to an upstairs bedroom to lessen the load on one of the circuits in the electrical panel. To do this, they ran the wire for the new outlets through the attic. Upon entering the attic, Alan noticed that light was visibly entering the attic through roof of the house. The flashing for where the sides of the attic and the roof meet had been improperly installed. As a result, no only was light able to come in but so was water. There were several spots in the attic that had clearly been affected by this issue.

I came home today to find that Alan's team have been correcting this issue for us.

Regarding the kitchen... we're on hold until the counter tops get here.

Do you know what prominent R&B group had a hit with the same title as this post?

Little White Flags

Disclaimer: The work you are about to view was not done by my contractor Alan. Alan's work is always of the highest quality.

So, as I shared during my last post the inground sprinkler system was installed. I was told that the process was fairly simple and that while the yard would sustain some damage, it would be minimal. The machinery used to dig the trenches apparently was supposed to fold the turf over and fold it back once the lines were laid. I expected there to be some sort of damage, but in many places it looks as if they just dug up huge sections of the yard. Nevermind that they didn't want to repair the electrical line that they hit (Alan fixed that for me). Nevermind that they sent 6 people over to work on the yard on Friday and it didn't look like a thing had been done.

I went out of town on Friday and when I returned on Sunday I decided that the best way to get this fixed was to do it myself. So, I purchased no less than 25 - 40 lb. bags of topsoil from home depot and did the repair work myself. As my neighbor Don said, the good things it that I've got plenty of the one thing you need to repair a lawn... water.

The little white flags in the pictures below show where the sprinkler heads were installed.