Moving along..

Sheetrock's up and I should be painting by Friday, so I'm told.

Wall comes down

They got the wall opened up, put a new doorway into the pantry, and opened up the entry into the family room from the foyer. Hopefully today Joe will finish sheetrocking the walls.

First game of the year

Here I am behind the plate at a high school baseball game yesterday - it was cold!

Day 1 of the family room/kitchen project

So Joe says to me, after he rips down the yellow paneling, "I have good news and bad news."

The good news is, the wall we want to take down is only carrying the load of the ceiling, so we can remove it without causing the house to collapse.

The bad news is, there is a radiator pipe running up that wall, which will prevent us from opening up the doorway as much as we had wanted. And we will have to get a plumber to move that pipe so we can still have our half-wall without a column. The plumber comes tomorrow morning to discuss work-around options.

Before pictures

Here's what our kitchen *used* to look like. On Sunday, we moved everything away from the wall that is coming down, in preparation for the demolition that starts today.

Egg Hunters and Gatherers

Yesterday some serious egg hunting went down at our house..

there is a fridge in our new kitchen!

Here's a drawing of the pantry cabinet design, with the fridge in the corner. This is seen from the new doorway that we are creating in the wall between the pantry and the family room.

the kitchen-family room project begins..

Yesterday Dave and I went to Lowes (it was the third session for me and Mike Sullivan, our uber-patient cabinet designer) and ordered our cabinets. We ordered Shenandoah Dominion Square, in cherry with a "spice" finish. Here's a picture of the cabinets from the manufacturer's website, along with a scan of our final floorplan and a shot of the projected project.

I went a good $2000 over budget, with all my glass doors, end panels, built-up crown molding, etc... Lots of bells and whistles but I think they will be worth it.

So, now we wait 4-8 weeks for the cabinets to arrive. In the meantime, Joe is going to start the demolition of the family room (Phase I of the project), on March 25. Phase II, the actual install of the kitchen, won't start until May. That gives me plenty of time to obsess over countertops, paint colors, and flooring.

Bathroom's done! Next!

Joe and crew finished up the bathroom on Friday and I spent the weekend painting, and shopping. I wasn't crazy about the paint color at first, but it has grown on me. Dave describes it as "pea soup a la The Exercist", but it's called Dried Palm (Behr).

Here are the pics, and check out our storage alcove that didn't exist before this remodel.

And from the "I wish I knew then what I know now" vault of wisdom, here's a tip: When the directions on the tile grout sealer bottle say "wipe off excess before it dries", they really mean it. Take them at their word.

ok so we're on to the kitchen/family room megaproject next!