Under-cabinet Lighting

We had an electrician come in before we renovated the kitchen, to update some of the wiring and add some additional outlets. We also had him wire for future under-cabinet lighting. For the past year and a half we have had wires hanging down underneath our cabinets because I was having a hard time finding slimline hardwired under-cabinet lighting. Last night I finally found some.

After all of my searches online and in stores, I finally decided on the UtiliTech Pro LED Direct-wire Under-cabinet Lighting, which I found at Lowe's. We bought a light for each cabinet... two 30", two 12", and a 24". When we got home, we realized that we had used common sense, and assumed that a 30" (or 12" or 24") under-cabinet light would be for a 30" cabinet. But the 30" was the actual dimension of the light, so it was about 2" too wide for the cabinet. We ended up having to use the 24" on the 30", 18" on the 24", etc. The only problem was that they didn't sell a size smaller than 12", but we'll need a 9" one for the cabinets on either side of the stove. We'll deal with that later I guess.

We had a wicked busy day today, but R installed the light above the dishwasher. It looks awesome. We have been turning it on every time we walk in the kitchen! It's so nice to have the extra light on the countertop!

We're planning on buying a dimmer switch for the under-cabinet lights. I'm not sure why I didn't have the electrician install one right from the start. I can't wait until our next party.. it'll be so nice to have some nice mood lighting in the kitchen :)

Our Second Christmas in the House

This Christmas was a little different than last year. I decorated more, for one thing. We had more finished (or semi-finished) rooms. It was also nice to be able to do a lot of baking in the kitchen. Having a kitchen table again definitely helped! I think I made over 25 dozen cookies (some of which I brought around to our neighbors).

And this isn't even all of them! I think I made about twice as many as shown in this picture!

We (and by we I mean me) decided to change things up this year and put the tree in front of the front windows. I love being able to see the tree from the street (which you couldn't really do.. oh well.. you could see it a little!). I've also been wanting to try out a different furniture layout in the room. We moved the loveseat to in front of the fireplace. I like it. R doesn't. I think it makes the room feel larger. The only downside (according to me) is that the coffee table is a little awkward because of the tree.. it can't be centered on the couch, so it's just kinda hanging out in the middle of the room.

I especially loved being able to decorate in the kitchen. Last year at an after-Christmas sale we got these two artificial trees for $2 each. The garland was about $1.

I think this was one of my favorite things in the house this Christmas. I could never seem to get a really good picture of it though.. It looked awesome when all of the rest of the lights in the room were turned off though!

This year at an after-Christmas sale we bough some night pewter and white candles to put in the windows (for $1 each!). We're considering keeping them up all year long. There's another center chimney house across town that does this and I've loved it ever since I was little.

Our New Kitchen Floor

This weekend R continued working on the Kitchen floor. It had been put on hold thanks to the power outage, so we were now very behind in our schedule!

He got quite a bit done Saturday.. but wasn't able to finish. Sunday, however, was a different story. He had finally gotten the hang of it.. and it was going down incredibly quick!

He first had to go to Lowe's to buy some more plywood. While he was gone, I put a second coat of paint on the walls (I'd prefer to paint when there's just plywood on the floor) and painted the ceiling. The ceiling looks so much better.. you can't even tell where the old upper cabinets used to be (we also used some spray "popcorn" to cover up that area).

This is how much he had done by dinnertime on Saturday...

Barely half of the kitchen.. and about half of that was from the previous Saturday. By dinnertime on Sunday, he was done! We still have to do the little hallway that goes to the Living Room and Bathroom, but we haven't decided what we're doing with the walls in there (lead paint that would take FOREVER to take down.. we might just replace the walls with drywall...). But we'll worry about that after the party.

Also on Saturday, he unpacked the dishwasher. It's not hooked up (again.. that'll have to wait until after the party. Sadly), but it's in place. Madison enjoyed playing in the dishwasher box for awhile. So much so that we're keeping it for her..

Because the last couple rows were pretty tight (with the wall/hutch there), I got to do them! It was a lot of fun.. and not that hard (especially seeing as everyone told us it would be impossible..torture..worse thing ever to install the floor).

And look how pretty it is!!

A Week in the Eighteenth Century.. Day 1

We're all gung-ho about getting the kitchen done. We have a schedule. I'm posting every day with our progress. Then I drop off the radar for a week. Where was I?

See all that black? That means that 90-100% of the town doesn't have power. Guess where we live. Yuuup.

Here in New England we had a major nor-easter. In October. It was crazy. R and I enjoyed it at first. Saturday was a gorgeous day filled with snow (we love snow in this house!). R cut the grass early in the morning (in anticipation for the snow) and I painted the kitchen. Then we set up the miter saw and started installing the floor. By the end of the day we had 10+ inches of snow on the ground and a new floor in 1/4 of our kitchen. We realized that we weren't able to use our stove though (can't walk on the new floor for 12-24 hours while the glue dries), so we went to a local pizza place and got pasta take-out and sat on the couch with our warm food and watched American Horror Story. A fun night.

1:30 in the morning we were woken up by the volunteer fire department's siren going off. We had just lost power (siren goes off when we lose power). Ok. This is fun. No power. We went back to sleep. Woke up around 7:30. Still no power. Ok... now my eye is starting to twitch. We were suppose to have a long day of working on the floor! We had to finish the floor today!! I decided to look at it positively however. I grabbed It by Stephen King (my book club's October book) and took advantage of my hidden blessing.. I now had time to finish reading it in time for our Halloween discussion on Monday. R said he was going out to fix our SUV's heat, which he had noticed the night before wasn't as warm as it should be. I said ok, bye, without looking up from It.

2 1/2 hours later, he comes walking back into the house complaining about lines at Dunkin Donuts. Apparently he wasn't fixing the car... he had driven around for 2 1/2 hours looking for an open Dunkin Donuts (a man and his morning coffee... sigh). The closest DD to us was open, but had a mile long line. The other DD down the street had no power. He drove to my hometown (town of 17ish DD). One was closed. One was open. One had a long line. One had no coffee. You get the picture. He drove by my parents house to see if they had power. They didn't.. and there was a HUGE tree down blocking the road that had fallen from one of our neighbor's yards. He gave up and came home. Without his coffee.

Now, I'm a person who can adjust to no power with no problem. R can't. All of his "fun" consists of TV, computer, power tools.. and it was all taken away. He wandered around for a little bit. He ended up taking a nap upstairs without dog. Meanwhile, I'm plowing through It! This is awesome!! Then it's time for the Patriots game. And we still don't have power... He found an old battery powered radio the previous owner left, hooked up his ear buds and sat on the couch listening to it. While I read (almost done now!). Then it started getting dark. I pulled out some candles from the candle cabinet. It was pretty in here.. and smelled pretty good too! 

Then it was time for dinner. R grabbed some meat out of the freezer (might as well use it while it's still good!) and some potatoes and threw them all on the grill. If you've never had potatoes on the grill, do it. They were so good! Well, except for the bacon bits he threw in there that just got completely charred... other than that... a little olive oil and Sicilian salt... mmm so good!! We ate in the almost dark... with Madison sitting on the end of the couch staring at us trying to figure out what was going on. About an hour later (football game was over by now), R was ready for bed. I said I wanted to finish my book first. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, so I said fine. We'll go to bed. Then I looked at my phone. It was 8:31. Sigh. Is this what time people in the 1700's went to bed? I felt silly going to bed so early! Then I decided to be stupid. I read the last 50 or so pages of It in bed. In the dark. With a flashlight. Needless to say, I kept seeing and hearing things all night...

Luckily, we didn't have too much damage in our yard (we had more damage in the hurricane, when we didn't lose power). Our next door neighbor had some really large tree branches fall in her front yard, but luckily none hit her house!

Only Two Weeks Left!

Ok.. I'm starting to get freaked out... We only have 2 more weeks (4 weekend days...) before the party! In those 4 days we need to get the floor installed (most likely will take up 2 full days), install the dishwasher, install the window casing, install the door casing (only on 2 doors... 2 already have it), install the lower filler panels on the cabinets, install the toe kick and install the base trim. And install the light fixtures!

AHHHHHHH... I don't know if we're going to make it!! And on top of all of that, during the week I have to not only get my work-work done, but I need to finish painting the walls and ceiling, paint the trim and beadboard, unpack, bake and cook for the party, and finish everything else on my "party to-do" list (cleaning for our overnight guests, vacuuming, clean up the old plywood from the backyard, etc.). Because have I mentioned that my house is basically just a big disaster area??? I know that as soon as the floor is done and I can move some stuff into the kitchen it'll be a little bit better... but... AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

We really need to get our butts in gear. We're already planning on going to bed really early tonight so we can wake up really early tomorrow morning and get working immediately! It's going to be a long long day! If we can get the floor done and the dishwasher hooked up by Sunday night, I'll be happy. That will leave all of the trim to the following weekend... which shouldn't be too too bad... the windows will probably take the longest, but I've already primed everything, so that's a start!

Then this upcoming week I can tackle a lot of the cleaning and stuff, and the following week (right before the party), I'll finish up painting all of the new trim.

We can do it... we can do it... I just need to keep repeating that to myself!!

Hey! What's That?

Hello New Plywood

This weekend we got all of the new plywood down in the kitchen! It went down pretty well. We started by the cabinets and moved toward the built-in cabinet. We started with full pieces and then cut smaller pieces where needed. Most of the time R would cut the pieces while I was screwing in the previous piece. On some of the larger pieces we had races though, to see who would finish their piece first (gotta make it fun!) (PS I won).

So you know what this means. Next weekend we're going to start putting down the new floor! I am so so excited!! Monday night R printed off the instructions and read through them, preparing himself. I think I'm going to cry tears of happiness when it's all done!

This is also means that I need to get my butt in gear and get the room painted before Saturday though. I need at least one coat on the ceiling and two on the walls. I'm not a super messy painter, but I've been known to get a drop or two on the floor and I just can't "ruin" my new floor so soon after we install it, so it needs to get done before the floor goes down! Especially the ceiling...

Once there's paint on the walls and a real floor, it'll finally seem like we're almost there. And we are almost there. The party deadline is coming up very quickly... Only this weekend and one more! That's two weekends! We definitely aren't going to be 100% finished, but I think as long as we have the floor done, the dishwasher installed, the walls/ceiling painted, the light fixtures installed, the window and door casing up, base trim and beadboard trim up, we'll be good for the party. The fridge cabinet and crown molding (and fireplace trim) can wait until after the party.

Goodbye Old Floor

Today was a little bit of a mis-match of work, at least for me. R was in the kitchen removing the last pieces of old plywood while I sanded the walls (still! It's never-ending!). However, I didn't last very long. I have asthma and the dust from sanding from the dust being kicked up from the plywood and the saw R was using were starting to really bother me. I went outside to get some fresh air and ended up working on my sidewalk some more.

Yes. I'm still not done. I had a good rhythm going when I first started, but then the kitchen schedule took over and I wasn't able to dedicate an entire weekend to the sidewalk anymore. My dad came a couple weeks ago to help me dig out the area between the lean-to and garage, but then it rained one weekend, then it was a rare humid October day... you get the picture.

This afternoon I was able to get around the corner and past the rock that was giving us a problem (this whole area was filled with buried rocks and buried broken dishes and cups... however, this rock, it turned out, was supporting some of the random rocks that are helping to hold up our lean-to. We're planning on tearing down the lean-to, putting in an actual foundation and rebuilding it next summer). At first I was thinking I'd just go around it for now and next year when we took apart the lean-to, I'd put in the missing bricks. But now I really like how it looks and am considering doing it in a couple other places as well :)

Then I ran out of bricks. Oh well.. until next weekend...

While I was doing all of this, R made good progress in the kitchen. You'll remember that we did half of the plywood last Sunday, and this weekend we did the cabinet side of the kitchen. It was not as easy as the other side (hence it taking almost 2 days). The sub-floor on this side of the kitchen wasn't the old, original flooring.. maybe it had too much water damage or something, but it looks like it was removed around the 50's (helping to solidify our idea that that was when the last major work was done on the house) and "new" 6" boards were put in its place.

Another issue he was having was under the cabinets. He couldn't get the saw in all the way, so we still have old plywood for about 3" under the toe-kick.. and we also left it under the dishwasher (technically it's new there because we had to replace it last fall) and under the stove. Also, because we ran out of time and weren't able to get the new plywood down, our stove was left out in the middle of the kitchen... which means tonight was the first night of a week of take-out (tonight it was pizza. We tried a new place... it wasn't that good).

It's Here! It's Here!!!!! OMG!!!

THE FLOOR IS IN OUR HOUSE!!! Like, actually, physically here!! In it's boxes, in the Dining Room!!! That's a huge huge step for us!!! We have everything we need to install it, the pads, the glue... we just need to finish up the new plywood first!! YAAAAYYY!!!! We picked it up after R got home from work tonight at the flooring company's warehouse (that way we'd get it a week sooner). Best trip ever!!!

Removing Plywood

This is what our kitchen floor has looked like for the past year or so. I started off removing the vinyl flooring, but it was extremely time consuming, and the other half of the kitchen has an additional layer of older vinyl or linoleum, with what appears to be an asbestos adhesive. Not something I wanted to mess with.

We made an executive decision last weekend to take up the old plywood. It would end up costing us some more money, because we'd be buying brand new plywood, but the amount of time it would save alone makes it completely worth it. Plus we got a thinner plywood, so the top of the new finished floor will be level with the hearth and Dining Room floor.

We made it our goal to get at least half of the kitchen done today. It was mostly R tearing up the plywood (which was nailed every 2"!), but I would start each piece off, removing any screws and taking up the first couple nails. By the end of the day, we reached our goal and got all of the plywood out on the fireplace side of the kitchen. And we went and bought all the new plywood. We didn't find too many strange things, except that the floor we've been walking on in our hall is actually the kitchen's sub-floor, the plywood went underneath the "wall" separating the kitchen and hall (it's basically just a piece of drywall screwed into some wood paneling... no structural support at all.. about 1 1/2" thick), and that the floor wasn't in as bad shape as we originally thought. It's still not good enough for us to use as a finished floor, but it's not as unsafe as we thought. We've been walking on it for almost a week now and it's supporting us just fine!

The threshold between the kitchen and hall.. we've decided to run the new floor into the hall, to get rid of the awkward, thin threshold. The new thresholds will be between the hall and bathroom and hall and living room, and will be normal width and less of a tripping hazard.

The only area (so far, fingers crossed) that was in bad condition, though not bad enough that it needed to be replaced, was in front of the window, where the 700 lb. radiator sat for 60 years. There's a little water damage and some broken wood.

(If you look carefully, you can also see that I did a little paint test on one wall.. we both hated the color at first, but a couple days later it had grown on us and we like it now :) )

Done with Drywall

All of the kitchen is finally drywalled! We kept holding back because we couldn't agree on what to do with the beams next to the big windows. Well, we finally decided to drywall them, and the compromise was that years down the road when we put on an addition (which will include making the kitchen bigger), we'll redo the beams with detailed wood, like they were years ago. And, we got to use our free drywall, and free is always good :)

While the joint compound was drying, Madison decided that she just had to help smooth it out. What a good little helper. And then it was off to her bath #2 for the day...

Weekend of Craziness #1

As you know, we have a Kitchen deadline. I made a schedule. It's taped to the cabinets in the Kitchen, to taunt us.

This weekend was Weekend #1. And it was pretty crazy. On the schedule for this weekend was "Finish the drywall in the Kitchen (under the windows and on the beams), patch/sand the drywall, install the window casing, paint the Living Room and finish the beadboard backsplash".

I was pretty angry last week because we went on a vacation/business trip (which is why we didn't get any work done last weekend) to Minnesota and when we got back I had a TON of work to catch up on. Which meant that I didn't have time to finish the paint removal in the Living Room. (Not angry about the trip, which was amazing... angry that I didn't get to finish everything in time..) So before the weekend started we were already behind (I was going to have my SILs paint all the Living Room trim and woodwork).

But, we still managed to get a lot done. Not everything on the schedule, but still a lot.

By the end of the weekend, we managed to get the drywall up on one vertical beam (only one left to go!), and under the windows. The fireplace got two more coats of paint, plus the cabinet door got painted. The casing of the door opening between the Hall/Living Room and Kitchen got painted. The casing of the Dining Room opening got painted. 80% of the walls got patched, sanded and primed. The disconnected electrical outlet from under the windows got removed. The door to the stairs got scraped and taken down. The chicks got updated nesting boxes (they destroyed the ones I put in a couple weeks ago.. the new ones are screwed into the shelf.. they're Gladys-proof!). And the lawn got cut (it looked like we had a lawn service.. two lawn mowers going at once!).

Pretty successful weekend, even though we didn't finish everything on the schedule. We did do some stuff that was on there on other days though, so I think it evens out. I don't mind that the Living Room didn't get done. That was my fault, because of Minnesota and work. Couldn't be avoided. And the Living Room technically isn't part of the Big Schedule of October 2011. So who cares. It can be done in November.

We could have definitely gotten more done if we had been home last weekend to do some of this. We had 2 (3 on Saturday) extra helpers, but most of the time we didn't have any work for them because we had to wait for other stuff to happen first. Like, if we could have done the drywall and sanding, and/or the window trim last weekend, they could have helped me paint it all this weekend.

I have to say though... on Saturday we were all amazed by the Hall/Living Room opening casing.. it being white now (as opposed to half stained, half plain wood like it has been) made a huge difference! But that was nothing compared to white, primed walls by Sunday afternoon! It finally looks like we're almost there!

And on top of all that, we managed to go to two fairs, watch TV, have a nice big breakfast and wash and put away all the dishes from the whole weekend. We're pretty awesome :)

Floor Issues

Things wouldn't be right in our world if everything went smoothly and according to plan. I should have known not to get to excited about the fact that we had finally ordered our floor.

Three days after we ordered and paid for the floor, I got a call from the salesman (when I saw his number on the caller ID I got excited, thinking, stupidly, that maybe the floor came in early!).. Turns out the floor we ordered (and loved) is an older type of floating floor. The type you need to glue. I told him that I'd talk to R and see what we wanted to do. After a lot of emails, phone calls, and research, we cancelled the order. Turns out that this type of installation takes a lot longer, is extremely messy and has a lot of room for error. Not something we want to attempt. So we're back to square one.

Last Thursday we went to the showroom to look at some new samples. I think we took home about 30 samples. They all looked horrible, except for one. It's another hickory floor, but it doesn't have the distressed, vintage look that the first one did. But it doesn't need to be glued. And it does match the Dining Room floor. R isn't completely sold on it and I'm wondering if I just like it because I want a floor. We need to make a decision soon though because we need to get it ordered and installed soon because half of the finish work left to do in the Kitchen can't happen until the floor is in.

R's sister had a good idea this weekend. What if we paid someone to install the floor, rather than do it ourselves. While this is exactly what we didn't want to do (for many reasons), it would let us get the floor we actually love, and not have to settle for another one just because it's easier and cleaner. So we're still in discussion mode on this one... it'll be more money and we won't be able to say "we did that!". What do you think? Would it be worth it? Or should we just order the other hickory floor?

Floor: On It's Way!

Looking back at my posts so far this month, it feels really good to have a post where I actually can say I did something! We made progress!!

We ordered our Kitchen floor this morning!!!! YAY!! It should be here in about a week. We'll be busy with work-work next weekend, so we'll be losing a house-working weekend. So R will be tackling the plywood removal the following weekend (while I finish up the Living Room!!). Hopefully he'll get most of it done that weekend because the following weekend I'll be antsy to start putting some flooring down! I'm getting excited just  typing this!! And the thing I'm most excited for? A floor means that I finally get to install my dishwasher!!! (Ah, the joys of homeownership/married life...)

I Changed My Mind... Again!

First I was indecisive with the sidewalk, now it has moved on to the Kitchen floor. In July we finally made a decision on the floor. As I've said before, we were having a hard time for two main reasons. All of the other rooms in the house have original, 18-24" wide wood floors. The Kitchen touches two rooms so we needed a new floor that didn't look too new, wasn't too narrow, and wasn't too expensive. Also adding to this was the fact that the floor was raised up so much from the adjacent rooms, so "real" hardwood (which we'd be able to get really wide) wouldn't work. It was too thick.

The main problem here is the current floor situation. We have the existing sub-floor (which unfortunately isn't in good shape, so we can't re-use it) and then 3/4" plywood (with a couple layers of laminate on top). We went back and forth trying to figure out what to do. I contacted a contractor I work with to see how much it would cost to have his guys remove our plywood floor, then remove the original floor, then put the plywood back where the original floor was. Then when we put down the new floor, it would be level with where the old plywood used to be. In the end, it ended up being too expensive. And R and my dad felt like it was a job that was way over our heads, so doing it ourselves was out.

Last weekend we had a very long conversation about this. R agreed to tear up the existing plywood and replace it (this would get rid of all the uneven laminate, plus the asbestos adhesive underneath it). This got my brain working.. What we're planning on doing now is removing the old plywood and then putting down 1/4" plywood in it's place. That plus the 3/8" new flooring and the pad will make the top of the new floor level with the old plywood. Everyone wins!

So last Sunday we set out to finally order the floor! I wasn't positive on the lead time (the sample board said it was "Special Order") or price. Let me tell you... don't ever go to a Home Depot on a Sunday night. You won't find anyone to help you! No one could answer my questions, and I kept getting bounced around between departments. Finally, someone in Appliances told me the lead time is about 2 weeks, but wasn't sure on the price. R was poking around the flooring department and found it on their sample boards (we were in a different HD than the one I got my sample board). And the price/sq.ft. was almost twice as much as we remember it being when we got the sample 2 months ago. Ick. My dad is paying for a majority of the floor, as a housewarming gift, and thought that this was too much. He asked if I could shop around and try to find it somewhere else for a better price. I emailed 5 places that carried that brand and only heard back from one. Dalene Flooring in Southington. Turns out it's a HD exclusive line (ugh), but the rep said that if I brought in the sample we could find something similar.

So yesterday afternoon I went to Dalene to check out their options. I left with 4 sample boards. As soon as I brought them in the house, I narrowed it down. I didn't even look at 3 of them. As soon as I brought one in (ironically, the last one I looked at in the store... I saw it as we were leaving), I knew this was it. I carried it around the Kitchen... putting it in the corner by the cabinets...

then by the fireplace...

and lastly, by the Dining Room...

I love it! It looked really good next to everything, but it doesn't look like we're trying to match. And it doesn't have a super shiny, nice finish like most wood floors (crazy people and their wanting nice, pretty floors!) so it doesn't seem out of place. It also helps that the wood in the Dining Room is narrower than the rest of the house..

Rustic River Hardwood Flooring
5" wide, 3/8" thick hickory