Odds and Ends

We picked out our cabinets and appliances for the kitchen a while ago, but we recently made some decisions about the "accoutrement" of the room.

Robert decided that this faucet was the faucet for us (it's Kohler's Simplice Pull-Down faucet) and I agreed. We picked it up from the Depot the other day:

It took us a little while longer to find the pendants we wanted (we're going to put two above the bar). After being disappointed with the selection at local lighting stores, I turned my search to the internet. Here were some of the styles I was digging:

I was particularly loving the one on the far right, but it was a little too rich for my taste at $119 a pop. So I found a similar style at a more reasonable $77 on Amazon:

 

I'm a little nervous that I ordered them without seeing them all lit up in person, but I guess that's what returns are for.

Unfortunately, these fun finishing touches won't be in place for a while. I called the company that handles Ikea kitchen installations today (since we're pretty much ready for cabinets at this point) and the next opening they had was...August 3rd. So that's, eh, almost a month from now. So that's another month where not much will be going on in the kitchen. We'll probably use these upcoming weeks to paint, clean, and generally get more organized since all the dirty/dusty stuff is over and done with. It will be fantastic to take the plastic off our living room furniture!

Looking Like a Room

We finally have insulation and drywall up in the kitchen, so it's actually starting to resemble a room!

The can lighting is also up (although it's not functional yet) and the fan for the range and air conditioning vent have been moved to their new, permanent places.

Plaster should be going up this week and then (fingers crossed) we'll be ready for cabinets.

Fire Pit Happenings

Right before the rehearsal dinner for our wedding (which we had in our backyard), we made a fire pit by stacking stone pavers on top of each other. It was a functional little pit and definitely served us well, but it wasn't the prettiest pit in the neighborhood.

So over the past few weeks, we've been working on making it a little more appealing to the eye and adding more outdoor seating to the area. It finally looked like this when we were done:

We used pressure-treated cedar planks to frame out where we wanted the seating area and then removed dirt from around the pit until it was about three inches deep (so when you step off from the grass, you're stepping down, not up). Then we filled out the area around the pit with pea pebbles for color and texture. A few plastic adirondack chairs from Home Depot added some much needed outdoor seating.

And to keep the cedar plank frame in tact, we fastened the corners together with small brackets (it's the same method Robert used for the frame of his veggie garden).

We're lovin' this new little area already...

Belly Up

We have a bar! Well, we have the beginnings of a bar. Our contractor finished framing out what will eventually be the bar between the kitchen and living room/dining room area.

It also seems to be a great viewing area for Henry the cat. Here's one more with the cat and his happy homeowner, Roberto.

There are more kitchen happenings slated for this week and next: the electrician is finishing up more work and the plumber is going to get started on his. Then we need to get inspected. If all that goes well, we can start drywalling. 

A lot of people ask me when we'll be finished, but I'm not really sure at this point. I'm hoping maybe mid-July or the end of July (it may all depend on when we can get an appointment for the cabinet installation). And that doesn't include finishing touches like the backsplash/painting/pendant lights, etc. Right now we're just taking things as they come and dreaming of future cocktails at our bar...

Getting It On

Work has finally started on our kitchen. Well, at least on the wall we're taking out. Yes, the wall is finally gone. Oh, Mr. Wall, we knew you well--you were the backdrop for our TV and some of our lovely built-in bookcases. You turned out to be a real pain in the butt (being load bearing and all) but we gotcha out. Well, our contractor finally got you out. But enough opining.

Yesterday morning, the kitchen area still looked like this:

Then when we came home, it looked like this:

(All those vertical beams are the temporary supports holding up the ceiling until the headers are put in.)

So the wall went bye-bye and those white built-ins on the corner were removed (and moved out into the carport).

I was super excited to pull up and see the built-ins in the carport. I had really hoped we could save them and move them to another wall, but wasn't sure if we could get them off the wall without damaging them. But our contractor was able to get the unit out in one piece. Very cool.

So we're making progress. It feels pretty good. Soon it will be hard to remember how that area once looked:

Getting Organizized

One of my goals for 2011 is to organize our living spaces a little better. Once our kitchen is finished, we'll take the opportunity to pare down the clutter that ends up in kitchen junk drawers and make use of all the wonderful interior drawer/cabinet organizers we purchased with our cabinets.

In the meantime, though, I thought I'd take on a smaller (and more affordable) organizing project--the linen closet. We usually try keep our closets fairly tidy but we let the linen closet go a little bit. You know, shoving things in there every which way and letting bulkier things like pillows and comforters kind of take over the space. So I took everything out, wiped down the shelves, and tried to refold towels/sheets in a more tidy way. I also took out those bulkier things and moved them into the hall closet and into this fabulous little storage bench from Overstock:

I put our throws and blankets in the bench and placed it under a window in our master bedroom. That way, we have easy access to extra blankets (in the few months we really need them in Florida) and a lot of space was freed up in the linen closet:

The bench listed on Overstock for $96.99. I used a promotional coupon and saved $6.79. So it came out to $93.15. Not bad for a small multifunctional piece of furniture (it's also a good place to sit and put our shoes on or place a bad or purse)

Another thing that helped the linen closet a little more streamlined were baskets. Yes, just a few baskets made a big difference. First, I moved out all the TP and paper towel that was haphazardly place in the hall closet (we always had to move aside the coats to get to it):

 

Then I placed it in an Ikea BRANAS basket ($12.99) and moved it over to the linen closet:

I also put all the small towels (dish rags and towels/microfiber cloths) into these baskets that I snagged from Target ($14.99 for the pair):

So, there you go, a bit more functional:

Let's Get This Thing Going

Ok, so we finally got estimates from the contractors we've been talking to (based on the plans that the structural engineer drew up). They actually came in at about what we were expecting, so we're moving forward with this thing. We're meeting tomorrow night with the contractor we decided to work with to sign paperwork for the permits. Alright. And hopefully next week we'll actually see some work going on in the kitchen.

We officially lost an entire month of work--all of May--waiting to hear back about engineering plans/estimates (except for some rough electrical work the electrician was able to get in). I'd like to say that we would have done something differently from the get-go to avoid the lost time, but I'm not really sure what that would have been. I guess we could have gotten more opinions about The Wall before we started demoing, but, hey, sometimes you can't tell about these things until you open up walls anyway. We probably would have waited just as long on engineering plans/estimates, etc. True, we may have been able to plan for some things a little better (like being without a kitchen this long) but what can you do...

The only thing I can say is to anticipate delays and more delays if you're coordinating a project like this yourself (and, hey, even if you're hiring someone professional to coordinate it). Try to keep positive, though, because it will most likely work out in the end--even if your wallet doesn't agree.