Visuals

Sharing a couple of things today. First, an accomplishment:

Sunday night we hung up some stuff in the kitchen. Appropriately, it's a "Dog and God" motif -- three dog portraits, two religious items (the plaque, if you haven't seen one before, is in Latin... "Bidden or unbidden, God is present").

Oh, I meant to crop that image tighter so it would show up better. Eh. It's already uploaded now. You get what you get.

And the second image, from our usual dog-walk route around our new neighborhood:

Yes, that's a mailbox. With a little patch of grass on top. With an angel sitting there. If this doesn't look like a teeny little cemetery, I don't know what does. (Because of the positioning of the mailbox, though, we don't think it's deep enough to actually bury any complete creature carcass. Perhaps the ashes of the last mail carrier are in there?) SpookyRach, because of this scene, we think of you on every walk.

Yikes at all the stuff happening.

- Our Texas house is under contract, with a closing date of October 21.
- We got the inspection report, and the buyers' requests aren't that bad. Still, I'd love if they were already resolved.
- We think we found a house in Capital City. We're so picky that we are making an offer on a cheaper house than what we could actually afford; one that will need immediate updating, so we can spend some money on updating right away.
- This house, if it is the house, is 400 square-feet smaller than our previous one. On purpose. All that talk at Heifer Ranch of how much is enough really got to The Alpha--and to me, too, even though I didn't actually get to go.
- And right now, this house has got some craptastic walls in the kitchen and bathrooms! I foresee more bouts with tendinitis, triggered by hours spent covering up very not-us wallpaper with Sheetrock mud and a putty knife.
- I wish I'd taken a picture of the Spongebob toilet seat. Another day, perhaps.
- Our backup options... well, we haven't agreed on a backup option. So I hope we don't need one.

Finished kitchen!

Okay, it's all done! Now we just have to put up the window coverings, seal the granite, and move everything back in there... and I have to leave for work five minutes ago, so I'll quit writing and just post the pics:

Groutness.

The grout went in yesterday... a day's delay because it didn't dawn on anyone that we hadn't yet chosen the grout color. We wound up picking "Earth." Here it is.

... annnd, on the floor:


....annnd, in the dining room and foyer, too:


This afternoon The Alpha began sealing the grout, and I joined him when I got home from work. (Sealing the grout and hanging one light fixture are pretty much the only labor we ourselves have contributed to this process, beyond moving stuff out of the area. Why? So we can say, "It's Shake-n-Bake, and we helped...")

We have both coats of sealant over the laundry room and kitchen floor grout, and over the portion of the backsplash that will be covered by the microwave and range hood. The rest of the second coat will happen later. For now, this is enough. The pros can now install appliances and do paint touch-ups. I think there's still a chance this will all be finished tomorrow, but I wouldn't be surprised if there are some little things that don't wrap up until the weekend. I'm amazed at how many details are involved. (I haven't even told the full Tale of the Hinges on the blog. I'm not sure I want to; I think it took four attempts to get the proper cabinet door hinges... but dang, I gotta hand it to our contractor friend for his persistence on that point.)

So, I'm thinking I probably won't take more update photos until we have some furnishings back in the kitchen. Because it's really getting that close to being finished!

Floored.

There's no grout yet, and the floors of the foyer, dining room, and laundry room are yet to be done to match, but here's the new kitchen floor:


We think the porcelain does a great impression of wood.

Had a great time not being near a computer all day the last two days. We'll see if I repeat the feat tomorrow. Lovely niece and I have been making progress on wedding-related decisions. Yeah, I'm not gonna lie to you. It's great girly fun we're having here.

Rapid subject shift: Backyard farm report. The three of us split Unintentional Cantaloupe #1 this evening, and it was quite good. UC#2 fell off the vine this morning, looking near-perfect, so it's in the fridge now. (The seeds must've come from last year's compost, because we didn't plant any. And dang if they aren't working out better than they did last year, when we tried to grow them on purpose and the birds kept eating them.)

Splish, (Back)splash

There's no grout yet, but every tile for the backsplash is in place.


Even the ones that will be hidden from view by the microwave and range hood:


Pretty nifty, huh?


Floor tiling begins tomorrow... we're really getting there!

Doors and hardware

We have our cabinet doors back!


And the hardware installed, for the most part:


The hinges have their own story. They were the third set purchased, because the first two sets wouldn't work, for different reasons. Contractor David had to drive all the way to Ft. Worth to find them. Which he did this afternoon.

And, also today, the vinyl disappeared from our floor! Tile work starts tomorrow.


Newly Engaged Niece arrived today, so I'm taking the rest of the week off work; I will divide my time between avoiding becoming an annoyance to the people working on my kitchen, and girl-centric stuff like going to bridal shops and Ikea and Container Store. (Among other things, I have to find a more stylish dog food bin to go in that pretty new kitchen.)

Granite!

The granite countertops were installed today!


We decided to extend the peninsula an extra few inches out into the breakfast area, in case we ever want to put a couple of bar stools there.

We even got matching granite windowsills. (They really tie the room together... just like The Dude's rug.)



As you can see, the backsplash comes next.


Prep work for the tile will probably begin tomorrow. And our kitchen sink will soon be usable.

Our contractor hadn't had anyone use this granite color before (it's a variety of New Caledonia, if I remember correctly). We're pleased with it. The main countertop was installed in three pieces, but you really have to look hard to find the seams. The epoxy, which a co-worker had warned me about, turned out not to smell near as bad as the oil-based paint (so, no more backyard camping necessary).

It's starting to look like a kitchen again. Only not the one we had before. Which is refreshing.

Oh, yeah. The floor's here.

I forgot to take a picture of the tile when it was delivered last week. Installation is supposed to begin on Thursday. Here it is:


No, it's not wood.

Really.

It's porcelain tile.

Neat, huh?

We think so.

Stinky drawers

(I just had to use that phrase as a headline. If you're from the south, that conjures up images other than pull-out storage bins that smell of oil-based paint.)


Bright and shiny drawers made their entrance yesterday; the cabinet doors return on Monday.

This painting phase has been malodorous. Oil-based works best for this particular setting, but dang, the fumes... Yesterday it was so overwhelming that we set up the tent in the backyard and spent the night out there. Today we were able to throw the windows open and do some serious airing-out. It's not gone, but it's definitely past the odor peak.


They also painted the paneling. The walls up top will be the same color ("Toasted Wheat"), but it has to be textured first. Possibly next week.

Granite is scheduled for Tuesday. Backsplash tiling will follow.

Newly Engaged Niece arrives Wednesday night. Thankfully, she's pretty good at adapting to less-than-perfect situations!

Just so you know:

If you have a kitchen, I'm fairly certain it contains more stuff than you realize.

Here's just some of what we've had in our living room for the past week:


Annnd, another angle:


Yes, that's two refrigerators in our living room. We're using the old one until the new one moves to its proper location.

And if you know the layout of the house, you've probably figured out that the tan love seat is blocking access to the foyer and dining room (staging areas for the kitchen work, soon to be ripped up for the tile phase). The dogs have been treating this blockade more as a loose guideline, though, since they can both jump over it.

We've had some progress in the kitchen itself this week. Documentation will follow momentarily in its own separate post.

This kitchen is divisible only by itself and one.

Because, you see, it has been primed. (Math geek joke. I'm not one, but I live with one.)


The dogs are totally clued in to the fact that something unusual is going on. People were here all day and dogs weren't allowed inside. That's just wrong. And there's plastic sheeting blocking their usual kitchen entry point.

See the wavy ornamental trim bits above the refrigerator hole and the dog buffet counter? Those are going away. Our contractor has made replacement pieces for those areas so the lines will be nice and clean like I want 'em.

Tomorrow night it won't look much different. They will finish priming, and do some caulking and sealing. Doors and drawers have been taken off-site for similar treatment. The actual painting will happen Wednesday.

Granite guys came to make templates for the new countertops and windowsills today, too -- a day earlier than expected. That's encouraging. Still no promises about when granite will be installed, though. (I'd be very pleased with Friday... I'm just sayin'.)

Regardless, it's good to see the work happening!

Kitchen progress

There's an echo in the kitchen, but that's about it.


Before you can put in new stuff, you have to take out the old. (Harvest gold appliances will be so in two years from now. We just know it.)

This pendant light is one of the few fixtures that will be the same when we're on the other side of this project:

Goodbye, dark wood. Can't say I'll miss you. The prep work for spraying white oil-based semi-gloss begins tomorrow.


And, just to drive home the point that we have to replace the flooring, our old fridge ripped the vinyl as it left the room (the "tile" markings are about a foot square, for reference):


So far, the dogs are handling change reasonably well. Except for Tuesday seizing an opportunity to eat three-quarters of a pack of Trident this morning, we've had no incidents. They understand that their food station has moved to the wet bar, so they hang out in the den as usual, with the added benefit that it's now closer to the kibble.

(Just so you know, on the floor plan, the contractor actually labeled the built-in unit by the kitchen/living room door "dog buffet." We also keep our china there, but that's secondary, of course.)

Movin' out... of our kitchen.

Nine and a half years after we moved into our house, we decided we're finally ready to overhaul the kitchen. Here are the "before" pictures. I warn you, "before" includes a lot of the "Why keep the kitchen straightened up? We're going to have to clean the whole thing out soon anyway" attitude.


It also contains a bit of "I don't care that they said they can do texture on top of the wallpaper! I can't take the ivy for one more second!" (Yes, it meant more work for me, but it was cathartic.)


The plan is to clean out the whole. stinking. kitchen. this weekend so the work can begin Monday. First on the list: the cabinets will be sprayed white. And not by us. We can paint walls, we can install a light fixture, but we don't trust ourselves with a whole room. And we definitely couldn't get it finished as fast as the pros will. Tuesday they are making templates for the granite. Whatever comes next, we'll take as soon as possible.

Here are our choices for the countertop and backsplash (click the photo and the tiles will appear very close to actual size):


The larger tiles are a bit more of a true gray than they appear in this photo; they match the granite very, very well. The smaller ones will be used as accents at regular intervals along the backsplash, as shown in this mockup, courtesy of The Alpha:


(No, the window area won't really be yellow. It'll be "toasted wheat," which is the same tan we used below the chair rail in the dining room.)

The floor tile is in, but not here yet. It looks like wood planks, and will extend beyond the kitchen to the dining room, front entryway, and laundry room. Appliances will be stainless steel and black.

Earlier in the week we got to go to the granite warehouse and choose our specific material. They lifted it up with a big crane so we could get a good look at the whole piece, then they chipped off a sample so we could take it with us to choose tile. Pretty cool. (Not literally; it was actually very hot in there. This is Dallas in July, after all.)

The big question: Will it be finished in time for Wonderful Niece's visit in two weeks? The contractor is making no promises, but we will at least have the cabinets and countertop handled by then, so there will be something new for her to see.

Friday Five: The Big To-Do

Over at RevGalBlogPals, KathrynZJ writes:

1) What home fix-it project is on your Big To-Do? Trying to decide between bathroom and kitchen.

2) What event (fun or work) is on your Big To-Do? This minute, leaving town to go be in the wedding of my college roommate/maid of honor. (Dogs and house are in good hands while we're gone.)

3) What trip is on your Big To-Do? Still haven't decided on vacation for this year. Didn't do one last year because of General Conference. Might work something in before fall....

4) What do you wish was on someone ELSE's (partner, family member, celebrity, etc...) Big To-Do? I wish for two prospective visits to my house this summer: Lovely Niece and fiancee (or he'd better be, by the time they visit in August!), and dear friend who is wearing a dress identical to mine in this bridal party lineup, along with her family.

5) Getting inspired? What may end this summer having moved from the Big To-Do to the Big Ta-da? Kitchen or bathroom, I hope!

RevGalBlogPal Friday Five: HGTV Edition

Over at RevGalBlogPals, Will Smama writes:

Greetings all!
As some of you may know I am in the midst of my first home purchase. It is a new-build and so some of the fun was picking out upgrades and major decor items to my taste rather than walking into a previously owned home that needed to be upgraded room by room (pink and teal tiles in the bathroom, anyone?). As much as decorating is not my thing, I did try to embrace the moment because just how many times do you get to have a do-over on kitchen cabinets/floors/countertops?

And so, my questions to you this fine Friday involve your home past, present or future...

1) If you could, what room in the place you are currently living would you redo first? Either the kitchen or the master bath.

2) What is the most hideous feature/color/decor item you have ever seen in a home? Hmm... we looked at a lot of houses before we bought this one. I think the weirdest deal-breaker we saw was a feature in the den of one house, where it appeared that a bathtub-sized chunk of the slab had been jackhammered out so someone could have plants growing in the floor. Seriously. I think they were rhododendrons.

3) What feature do you most covet? Do you have it? If not, is it within reach? Having our fireplace, which came with a very picturesque gas log that does not really put out much heat, converted back to wood-burning. But it's just not practical here in the 'burbs. Nowhere to procure or store the large amounts of wood I grew up with.

4) Your kitchen - love it or hate it? Why? I want to hate it, but I can't justify hating it because I'm not the primary cook of the house, and he doesn't really care how it looks. So I am officially not fond of it -- the layout, the cabinets, the floor, the vintage 1978 harvest gold range and hood, the so-1990s ivy wallpaper.

5) Here is $10,000 and you HAVE to spend it on the place you are living now. What do you do? Gut the kitchen and start over.

BONUS: Why do you think there was such a surplus of ugly bathroom tile colors showcased in all homes built from the 1950's right through the early 80's? Well, early on it might be excused by black-and-white TV and a subsequent yearning for vivid color, but in the '70s and '80s I think it was just that we were a tacky society. We couldn't help it.

The Great Chair Experiment: Success!

So, here's the chair I started with yesterday:



Ikea only sells three colors of the slipcover for this chair. But the HobLob sells many colors of Rit Dye. So I bought some tan and some dark green, and did a custom color dye job in my washer. Here it is, now in khaki green, in place by the new computer armoire:

Some days I really do impress myself!