Houston, We Have a Counter

There has been a huge amount of progress this week! Huge!

First, we got a lucky break. We thought that there would be nine inches left over at the edge of the kitchen that would require Rob to build a custom cabinet or shelf of some kind. As it turned out, there were exactly twelve inches remaining. Why is this lucky? Because 12 inches meant that we could purchase a cabinet to match the rest rather than trying to build something that might not exactly match. The doors for this cabinet, along with the other missing doors, should be arriving soon.



Rob also completed the last remaining bit of drywalling, above the French doors, which had to wait until waterproofing was complete. It needs to be sanded and mudded a few more times before priming, and then we'll be ready to paint! Just don't ask us what colour we'll be painting, heh, as that is something of a bone of contention around these parts. Suggestions are welcome, comments are open below.



On Saturday we attended the annual Great Glebe Garage sale, and picked up this Workbench for Patrick so he could help us out with our renovations. Please excuse the shmutz - he had just eaten lunch, which really means he had just spent half an hour spitting milk and numerous assorted food items all over the front of his shirt.







Then, at last, the best news of all. After being told last week that the counter should be ready this week, we got a call on Saturday saying that it would be ready for installation on Wednesday morning! Sure enough, right on time, John, Kyle and Keith showed up with our shiny new counter and even shinier new sink!









We have to wait 24 hours until the plumbing can be hooked up and then, after six weeks of eating pizza, microwaving frozen food, washing dishes in the laundry room, and washing my hands with baby wipes, I will have running water in the kitchen. I will be able to cook real food! Wash lettuce! Wash my hands! In fact, unless you have lived without a kitchen sink for six weeks I am not sure you can understand the enormity of what you are about to see.





All I need is for the Senators to win their big game tonight and today might just be the best day ever. Well, top five, anyway.

Slow return to sanity

We are getting there, we really are.

The counter people assure us that our counter should be "ready" next week. Still not sure if the counter being "ready" means that we will actually get our counter next week, but I think it is safe to assume that the counter being ready is an improvement over it not being ready. Living without a counter isn't such a big deal, but we can't get a sink until we have a counter, and a sink is kind of a major component of a kitchen. Kind of.

But there has been progress. All of the cabinets are now installed! True, not all of them have doors at the moment, but at least we can put things away.







Being able to put things away means that, once again, we have a dining room! Hallelujah! Life outside the kitchen has returned completely to normal, although the trim around the kitchen door still needs to be completed.



The french doors have been professionally waterproofed. Thankfully, after water came pouring in during our first big spring rainstorm, Rob decided to leave this one to the professionals. They did a great job. Unfortunately the camera batteries died, so I do not have a picture of the really cool metal-bending machine that they used.

You can see the need for our next home renovation project - Operation Back Deck, coming to a theatre near you in Spring 2008.



And, finally, our back yard is starting to look like a backyard again. A small backyard, true, but a backyard nonetheless.


And Patrick? Well Patrick just wants to go outside.


You can see that in this picture we are, in fact, not outside, and he is less than impressed.

Hello, Mudder

In kitchen news, a huge amount of progress was made this week/weekend, thanks in part to Jonas, who came by to help mud.



But, just so you don't think that Rebecca and Jonas were completely responsible for the mudding of our kitchen, here is a shot of Rob, mid-mudding, while at the same time falling off the ladder.



Rob did lots of waterproofing of the holes we made to the outside of the house, and installed outside lights by the new french doors.





And, plenty of progress was made inside, as well. Once mudding and sanding were complete, Rob primed the walls and assembled the rest of the cabinets. Or, I should say, he intended to assemble the rest of the cabinets - as it turned out some of the cabinets that were delivered were the wrong size, so a trip is going to have to be made to try to sort that out. Nothing is ever simple.








With the bulk of the cabinets in place we were able to get some things put away and get our living/dining area back to a more functional state. Hopefully the counters and sink will be installed soon, and then we can get busy painting, tiling the backsplash, and finishing up the trim.

But, let's be honest, here - blah, blah, kitchen, kitchen. The really important thing that took place this weekend was our Ottawa Senators advancing to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time in history!





The big game on Saturday was broadcast in the afternoon (to which we say boo!), so Rob took the box that our dishwasher came in and made a fort, in the hopes that it would occupy Patrick while we watched the game. It was somewhat successful, although he did not appreciate it when I yelled at the TV, which meant I spent much of the game with a pillow over my mouth (as any of you who have ever watched hockey with me will easily believe).





And, last but not least, here is a picture of Patrick wearing the sweater that Grandma gave him when she was here for a visit just before the kitchen madness began. Thanks, Grandma!

Muddy McMudderton

After the flurry of work on the weekend, there is not much new to report in kitchen news.

Our trusty mudder Rebecca came over to do some mudding.



Thanks to her help, the first round of mudding of the shelf thing is complete. It will be sanded, then mudded again, then sanded, then mudded, and then sanded once more. Here's hoping Rebecca has lots of free time on her hands.



Rob made some adjustments to the over-fridge cabinetry.


Up next is a bit more drywalling, and the weekend will bring waterproofing and work on the rest of the cabinets. Always a good idea to begin waterproofing after a few days of rain, hmm?

Here are a couple of pictures of Patrick playing outside. Now that spring has arrived, Patrick realizes that outside is a place to play. As a result, that is really the only place he wants to be.

Kitchen? What kitchen?

Holy Mackinaw!! The Sens are now up 3-0!

What a weekend

It was a crazy weekend around our household.

In kitchen news, Rob got the fridge water filter working once again, the pantry cabinets assembled, and even got doors on some of them! You can see our new convection microwave on one of the shelves - eventually it will be framed so that it will look "built in".




He was able to put a few drawers in, as well



The fact that he got so much work done is a credit to him, because there was a whole lot else going on.

First, our dog Pete decided on Friday that we had been paying far too much attention to the kitchen, and not nearly enough time paying attention to him, so he decided to go on a walkabout after someone who shall remain nameless left the side door open when they left to go to Home Depot. Friday night was spent walking and driving around the neighborhood looking for him, and the better part of Saturday morning was spent putting 'LOST DOG' signs up around the neighborhood. Thankfully he was found by a kind soul who called Animal Control, and he spent the night at the Humane Society shelter. He was there waiting for us when the shelter opened at 10am, and apparently feels no guilt about causing Mommy a sleepless night.



Of course, Sunday was Mother's Day, so Patrick had to go out and get me some flowers:



But, as a not-so-great Mother's Day gift, he also gave me a cold. The official very first thing we "cooked" on our new stove was water for my Neo Citran:



Having drawers and cupboards in the kitchen means that we were FINALLY able to get rid of some of the clutter in the dining and living rooms - these rooms, while not yet in their original or permanent state, are at least now somewhat livable and not a constant source of danger to Patrick.


However, the backyard has taken a bit of a step backwards and is full of debris once again.



And last, but not least, the Senators are up 2-0 in their series against Buffalo. I hope too many people don't jinx us by bringing brooms to tonight's home game!!

Two steps forward, one step back

The last major milestone to give us an almost fully functional kitchen (albeit with no sink) was installing the vent hood. Rob literally ran into a brick wall trying to do this - making a grand total of five different types of siding/wall material in one room. Surely this must be some kind of record? But, after lots of banging, and crashing, and repeatedly braving the spiders in order to squeeze into the small space between our house and the neighbors, he got it done.

Vent:



Hood:





Tah-Dah. We thought we were on the home stretch, only to come home today to a puddle of water in the kitchen. My precious fridge water delivery system, one of my few 'must haves' for this kitchen, has malfunctioned, and Rob has no idea why, or how to fix it. But I know he'll figure it out. Right? Right??