Granite's in

Last night, Sara dropped a "time capsule" into a crevice in the cabinets. Her time capsule contained some items from the present (a print-out of msn.com's front page, her facebook page, a tax bill for our house, and a note). Once the granite was installed, her time capsule was sealed in, to one day be unearthed again decades in the future, if/when anyone renovates this kitchen again.

The granite was installed today. And I love it. From a few feet away it looks black, but up close it has specks of various shades of black and gray, and even a few sparkles. I am not too happy about the scratches in my floor, however. More to come on that.

waiting for countertops now

The electrical is done. The fixture I bought from the Home Depot was defective and I have to return it, but other than that, the lighting looks great. The granite is scheduled to be installed on Wednesday. Then we'll have running water and be back in business!

Thanks, T's!

Here's the really cool Mother's day card that the T family sent me, which made my day. Thank you Tracey, Tim, Tyler, Taryn and Terysa! And Tracey, I hope you had a happy mother's day too!

And - Happy belated First Mother's Day to Erica!

Cabinets are going in

Joe and Steve are making excellent progress and they do amazing work. The appliances were delivered today, and I scheduled the granite template for Friday. So we're cruising along!

Busy weekend

Over the weekend, Dave put the floor down, and I got most of the painting done in the kitchen. Today Joe and Steve are here, putting in the cabinets. More pics coming soon...

I gave in

Here's the ridiculously overpriced bar faucet I ended up buying on-line. As usual I waited too long to start looking and found myself in a bind. I need it by next Wednesday when they (hopefully) will be making the template for the countertop. I refused to pay $32 extra for 3-day shipping, so I'm taking my chances on ground UPS.
I really wanted the Kohler version, but that was $400. Who pays $400 for a faucet??

Lots of boxes

The cabinets were delivered today, and the spackler is spackling away.

Dave and I did a little shopping..

Yesterday we went and ordered our appliances and our flooring, and we picked out our granite (well, we narrowed it down to two colors). We also bought our bar sink, but we still need to pick out our main sink, our faucets and our tile for the backsplash (and we'd better do it soon!). Here's what we bought.

Day 2 - Gutted

TicTac is not sure what to make of this new space.

And the fun begins..

It's Day 1 of the kitchen reno project, and Joe and the plumber are here. Scary facts about our kitchen that have been unearthed today:

1. The electricity to our wall oven was supplied via an extension cord under the cabinet.

2. We had a gas leak somewhere near our oven.

3. Our laundry sink (soon to be our bar sink) had no shut-off valves.

4. The shut off valves for our main sink don't work. At all.

I passed!

Dave and I took the UANJ Baseball exam (for NJSIAA Varsity Certification) last week and we both PASSED!

oh yeah that's right. Umpirez in da house.

more pics of the Mysterious Prom Girl

This is to (1) prove that she can actually smile, and (2) show the rest of her dress.

who's that girl?

Sara's Junior Prom photo op...

Hannah's 9!

Sara made Hannah a pig cake, and she got an iPod nano for her birthday. Dave and I are trying Atkins again so no pig cake for us!

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..