Summer!!

Well Hello!

For the past 2 days I have been in the mood to write a blog post and I figured I should sit down and write it before the mood passes and it is December. We have been having a great summer! In June and July we were home for 1 weekend. That was it, and to be honest it might have only been a Friday night. It was lovely but after 8 weeks of this, I was ready to be home for a little while and enjoy our house in the summer.

I started a new job which means I now have to work 5 days a week (I know, you are all feeling very sorry for me), but seriously if you can get a job where you can work less than 5 days a week, do it! I miss my 4 day work weeks. Between my new schedule and our out of town travels, our house was kind of a disaster.

Last weekend we were home and we cleaned the garage. I know, super exciting. It was to me though because when we moved in, it was December and we just threw everything that needed to be in the garage out there and shut the door. Then we renovated our first floor and it became our workshop. We have a 4 car garage and for part of this, zero cars were in the garage, and most of it just one car could fit in the garage. I am happy to report, after a trip to the dump and the hazardous waste disposal (the previous owners of our house left 7 cans of car oil, 10 cans of paint and various other chemicals in the garage) and a lot of elbow grease all three of our vehicles are in the garage again. It is awesome.

This weekend we were home again, which was nice, especially since it was raining. I HATE rainy days, but it made me feel less guilty about spending the day cleaning, organizing and making a huge goodwill pile. Ben spent yesterday and today putting up trim in our first floor and it is  looking good. He is almost done, then I begin my part, filling the holes and doing the touch up paint. That part of the project will likely get pushed off until fall.

The most exciting things that have happened to us lately have involved spending all kinds of money. First we bought a new sectional for our family room! Oh wait, it isn't exciting because we ordered at the end of July and it isn't supposed to be here until September 18, SEPTEMBER 18! Seriously it is ridiculous, but we haven't had a couch since February 1 so what is another few weeks. Next we bought a king size bed. Life changing. We both sleep so much better! Finally, on Friday night we went to Costco to get milk, and we found a dining room table that we both really liked.

The dining room table has been a point of discussion for months. I wanted a big table that could easily seat 8-10 people.  I tried to guilt Ben into building me one for my birthday but since we hadn't finished the renovation that didn't happen. Then we were going to buy one, I couldn't find one I liked in our price range, then I was going to have someone else make one, then we were going to buy one, then just last week I convinced Ben to make me a table again and we even picked out plans. Then we went to Costco and our problems were solved, a table we liked, for a great price. We picked it up last night, did some minor assembly and now we are loving it!!

 The new table!

From the Kitchen

See that nice space right there, the sectional is going to look great there. 

Hopefully it is delivered before Christmas. :) 

The trim is not quite done in this part of the room.

The other great thing that happened this weekend is I got to cook a ton in my kitchen. It also means I got to do dishes about 10 times, but as long as I don't have to do them in the bathtub I am grateful. 

Here is what I made this weekend:

Fresh salsa- no recipe, tomatoes, onion, garlic, bell pepper, jalapeno peppers, whatever random peppers I get in the farm share, lime juice, and cumin. Put it in the food processor and magic fresh salsa! This batch was so spicy it makes my nose run. 

Potato Soup- perfect for a cold day like yesterday! I added carrots and zucchini to this as well. 

Coconut Zucchini Bread - Really good but it did not have enough coconut flavor for me. 

Pizza dough- I can't find the link the recipe I use but I made a double batch and froze some so we can pizza on a weeknight. 

Honey Lime Chicken Enchiladas- One of our favorites! Ben requested these since we haven't had them since this spring. So yummy! 

Also, I didn't make these this weekend but here is my favorite recipe I have discovered this summer. Chili Lime Tacos with Grilled Pineapple Salsa. Seriously delicious. 

Now after 2 weekends at home, I am ready to be out of town again. :) 

Cheers, 

Ali 

A functional kitchen!

I had to refer back to my last blog post to see where I left off. So much has happened in the last two months. You know when people spoil the ending of a movie for you, well I am going to spoil the end of this renovation. The kitchen is basically done and it is amazing. I love it. I still can't believe it is mine. There are empty/nearly empty cupboards, I have 4 large drawers of organized kitchen utensils. Plenty of space to cook. I can't stop smiling when I am in the kitchen. But have no fear, the journey there was not easy.

Let me catch you up on what happened the past two months. First the floors got stained. They are beautiful and by far this was the easiest part of the renovation. We had wonderful floor guys who showed up when they said they would and finished the job a day or two early- it was a nice change!

Next up, Ben and I spent some quality time assembling our cabinets. My dad practically had a heart attack when he saw all the boxes from Ikea. He hates assembling Ikea cabinets. In fact the day he came to assemble, I think disappeared after about an hour and went to trim tress (his real love!). Ben also was not good at understanding the Ikea directions, so that left me as the interpreter. Assembling the cabinets was pretty easy. If you are ever going to assemble/install Ikea cabinets, have no fear you can do it. I am going to do another post with tips for Ikea Kitchen dreamers. Assembling the cabinets was overall easy, once you do one, they are all basically the same.

Then it was cabinet install day. I brought in the big guns for this install, Ben, my dad, my uncle and my brother in law. I spent the day running to get things from the store, making food, and hanging out with my niece having tea parties. It was a very long day and at times frustrating. I left Ben in charge of the instructions and obviously I hadn't taught him how to read the plans well enough so at one point we had to backtrack and take down about 4 cabinets to install the cover panels. I think my husband wanted to kill me when I pointed this out. Also, we did not plan ahead to leave enough clearance on the top of the cabinets for the trim I wanted to install, so we had to use a different one instead, which required yet another trip to Ikea. There were little hiccups with the cabinets but looking back it all seems pretty minor.

The next big project for me was assembling the drawers for our cabinets. All of our lower cabinets are pull out drawers, so this was a large undertaking. It went pretty smooth until we go to the last two, Ben and I each assembled a drawer incorrectly, which took us 30 minutes and a few YouTube videos to figure out how to take apart the drawer to remake it.

We ordered the counter tops which were supposed to take 3 weeks to come in, they took 5 weeks which was stressing me out because we had promised ourselves we would be done with this project by June 1. Luckily the counter tops went in the last week of May and the plumber was able to come hook up the water the Friday before Memorial day weekend. I had a really terrible idea of running the dishwasher on Friday before we left for the cabin which led to a discovery that the pipes were clogged and the dishwasher drained into the sink. Ben tried to fix it for 3 hours before I decided we were abandoning ship to head to the cabin for a break, on our way to the cabin we set up for the plumber to come back on Tuesday to fix the problem. We got lucky it is was an easy fix, and now the kitchen is working like a dream.

The most fun part for me? Organizing. Ikea has all of these awesome bins/dividers/organizers to keep things looking good in the new cabinets. I spent a couple hundred dollars on organizers, which seems insane but now the kitchen is super functional. My best friend came over and spent a few hours with me helping me decide where to put everything and keeping me focused. It was a little overwhelming but I am glad she was there to keep me focused.

Here are some pictures of the process.....

The finished floors

The end of day of 1 of install

The end of day 2 of install

The masterminds working on the trim!

The cabinets without countertops

Ta-daa! A finished kitchen

I love our new sink! I don't have a good pic with the faucet installed.

Drawer organizers

I love having drawers for everything, so easy to find things!

We still need to finish little things like trim around the window, installing a new door to the basement, install baseboards, picking out/installing a back splash and buying new furniture for the living room. It is so nice to be able to finally enjoy our kitchen!

More updates to come, sometime soon but I make no promises because I spent last summer preparing to move, this summer I plan on spending plenty of time playing!

Cheers,

A

Kitchen Remodel: A long overdue update!

In the words of Bon Jovi "Woah, we're half way there, Woah, livin' on a prayer
Take my hand, we'll make it I swear, Woah, livin' on a prayer". 

Yes, we actually are half way through the remodel (and I really hope we actually stay on schedule). Last week Ben and I decided that we are very much over the remodel. It was probably one of the most difficult weeks thus far as the mud/tape guy was at our house every evening until 10pm, and our house was a complete disaster. I don't think there was one part of our floor that was not covered in dust. This remodel is really testing my ability to ignore the mess. 

This remodel is so different from anything we have ever done before because we have hired out a good portion of the work. We did this for 2 reasons, first we work all the time, and we do not have the energy to come home every night and work on the house. Secondly, if we did this remodel on our own it would take us 6 months and while I love my husband dearly I don't know if our marriage would survive a 6 month renovation. This one is already wearing on us both, we are sick of the mess, sick of doing dishes in a bath tub, sick of not having anywhere to hang out in our house except our bedroom and our "den" (a bedroom next to ours with 2 chairs and a TV) and sick of spending most weekends working on the house. All very first world problems, I do recognize this :). 

The best news is we have finally made a major milestone in the renovation....we are putting the kitchen back together. It finally feels like the end is in sight. 

Enough words already, lets cut to the good part. The pictures!!!

The sliding door to the backyard is gone!

Drywall starting to go up!

The fireplace before

The fireplace after 2 coats of primer. We still need to update the stone on the front,
change the doors and finish painting but it is a start!

The great paint color debate. I will never buy a sample color of paint again.
I am just going to pick a color, trust my gut and go for it. This confused me more than it helped! 

My dad and Ben painting the ceiling this past weekend

We picked a color and I love it. Rainwashed by Sherwin Williams

The Kitchen. I didn't paint where the cabinets are going. 

The latest development, the wood floors finished being installed today!
I forgot how nice it is to have actual floors in the house!

This past weekend my dad was an amazing force of energy and helped us paint the kitchen, dining room, living room and hallway. Thank goodness for him, or we would not be nearly as far. A huge thanks also to my Mom who came over on Sunday did all kinds of random tasks for us including folding laundry which allowed us to finish the painting project. Parents are awesome! 

The floors now are getting sanded and stained over the next week and a half. Then the next challenge begins, actually assembling our cabinets from Ikea and beginning install. YAY! I am hopeful that we will have the cabinets installed by the end of April and will be able to order the countertops. We have made a ton of progress but we still have a lot to do! 

Cheers,

Ali 

Living Swiss Family Robinson Style

When I envisioned this project my big worry was how to survive without a kitchen for a few months. We are 2.5 weeks into not having a kitchen and I can say I really don't miss my old kitchen. I kind of like my "Swiss Family Robinson" kitchen (It really isn't that bad, we have running water and electricity). What do I miss? Only 2 things, my dishwasher and the kitchen sink.

Ben and I have become pros at washing dishes in the bathtub. I bought 2 deep dish tubs from Target and dish drainer and our guest bathroom upstairs has become the "Dish Room". Besides the first night, it has been no problem. The first night of dishes a pyrex container slipped out of my hands and shattered in the tub. I was more concerned for our freshly refinished tub than about the glass everywhere. We got lucky and the tub was fine, and Ben and I spent 10 minutes picking up glass from all over the bathroom. I really do miss the luxury of a dishwasher, but we only had one for our last year in Mound so we are used to washing dishes.

My cooking has changed in my mini kitchen. First, because we come home and work on the house and spending an hour on dinner is not really an option and also because I am now limited to one "burner". I have made pita pizzas, spaghetti, a few frozen skillet meals from Trader Joes but I haven't been too adventurous. Ben and I are fortunate enough to have wonderful family that have dropped off frozen meals for us as well that we can just heat in the microwave. We are very lucky!!

If you ever have to live without a kitchen, here are the key products you need to survive besides a refrigerator, microwave and toaster:

1. A hot plate,  here is the one I ordered. It works great! It would be nice to have 2 or 3 but that seems excessive for a temporary kitchen. :)

2. A toaster oven, I have an awesome one that is a convection oven. I have made brownies and scones in it and they turned out great!!

I also use my crock-pot a decent amount and I use the crock-pot liners from Reynolds and this saves a ton of clean up!!

Here are some pics of my temporary kitchen:

Toaster oven, scones baking!!

Our counter / table :) 

The new appliances on half the room. YAY for getting to use the new fridge!

I use my new oven to store pyrex and baking sheets, etc right now!

The kitchen looks mostly the same as the last time I posted, except there is no drywall or ceiling anymore. The good news is the plumber is coming out next week to move the pipe that is in the way of where the cabinets need to go. After that the carpenter needs to come and take out the door, and put in the new window and the electrician needs to work his magic. Then we need to start putting everything back together. In the meantime, Ben and I are going to install a new door to the garage, scrape the ceilings in the living room/dining room and work on picking out lights and tile for the kitchen. I have already adjusted our end date of this project to be June 1. It could be May 15 but I am trying to mentally prepare myself for June 1.

Some days I just stand in the dining room and stare at the empty, torn apart kitchen and try to imagine it. It makes my head spin to think of all of the work to be done, but I am excited for the end result. :)

Cheers!

Ali

A disaster....

If you need a laugh tonight here it is. I was in my temporary kitchen whipping up some tacos for dinner and talking on the phone to my mom. Next thing I know I hear Ben yell an expletive and I hear a sound I can't place. I yell "what is that" and Ben yells water. I look and there is water shooting out of one of the kitchen water pipes flying across the entire kitchen. I quickly tell my mom I have to go and drop my phone. First I try to stop the water with my hands, I know this will come as a shock but that didn't work. My second thought is towels, again water shooting out like a faucet across the room, not helping. Next I grab the huge garbage can in the room and turn it on its side, but the water just kept running out. Finally, I grab a garbage bag and manage to get most of the water to spray into that. After about 5 minutes (which felt like 2 hours) Ben finally found the main water shut off and the water stopped. At this point, I am dripping wet, the tacos are done cooking and the floors are dripping with water (and dripping into the basement since there are holes in the floor).

Ben comes upstairs and we look at each other and start laughing.

Turns out Ben was trying to drill a hole near the water pipe to lift the floor board over the pipe but it didn't really work when he hit the pipe. We moped up what we could with old towels, and turned on 4 fans to dry out the house. Ben is currently working on fixing the pipe so that we can turn the water back on for the house.

I just keep imagining what I must have looked like trying to stop the water and I can't stop giggling. :)

I am sure this wont be the last disaster.

Cheers!

Ali

Kitchen Remodel (Demo Edition)

One thing Ben and I discovered while we were living with my parents is that we are not good at downtime. So it is not surprising that as soon as life returned to 'normal' on Monday, I walked in the door to fine Ben tearing up the laminate flooring in the kitchen. Demolition had begun. We are now 7 days into the demo and we have worked on it everyday except Friday.

There were some fun surprises (that is sarcastic) like finding some beautiful green cobblestone linoleum in our kitchen, and a pipe in one of the soffits that now a plumber needs to re-route. While this project is a little overwhelming at times, we are hiring out parts of the work so that helps to make it a little more manageable. The most exciting thing this week was finally using our new fridge (it has been at our house since December). 

I will let the pictures of the demolition speak for themselves....

First what we started with, painted counters, a sticker back splash, tiny drawers, terrible pantries...

The flooring, only one of about 5 colors of wood in the house

I am hoping to widen this doorway

The wall to the kitchen is coming down, hello open concept!

No. Words.

Stickers!

Now for the demo pics:

The first layer of linoleum

The second (and thankfully last layer!

The first hole in the wall

Our temporary kitchen complete with hot plate, microwave oven, microwave toaster and crockpot.

Bye bye soffits!

Creeper!

After 7 days, looking into the dining room

From the dining room

We have a long way to go......

I am a girl who hates mess, so I am trying to not have a panic attack about the mess. We are close to being done with demo, it will be nice to start putting it back together. I am going to put a finish date of April 1, 2016 (might be a little optimistic!).

Cheers,
Ali 

A quick bathroom redo!

As usual I am behind on blogging! December flew by, and January led to some unexpected life events which derailed our house projects for a few weeks. Now life is back to "normal" which means we started demo on Monday evening. :)

Before Christmas I decided I wanted to give our upstairs bathroom a face lift. I loved the tile on the floor, the fact that there are double sinks, but little else about the bathroom. First step was hiring a company to re-glaze our bathtub. It was a hideous beige color and we could tell that had been "re-glazed", but obviously a DIY project gone wrong. We used the same company we used when we did this in Mound and they did a fantastic job. Once the beige was stripped off, Ben informed me that the tub was "baby poop green"...haha. The only downside was that is was an extra $200 to remove the lovely DIY job the previous owners had done. Totally worth it for a sparkling white bathtub!

I also sanded all of the cabinets, put three coats of espresso paint on them, and 3 coats of clear coat on them. In addition I ordered new hardware for the cabinets and got the hardware for a steal from Amazon (1/2 the price of Lowes). Putting the new hardware on went smooth until the last cabinet. With the new hinges one of the doors was now too wide, I ended up sanding down the inside edge of the door 5 times before it finally closed. I still need to repaint that edge of the cabinet....that hopefully will get done within the next year. :)

Ben and I had a romantic few days of painting the ceiling, and painting 2 coats of blue paint on the walls. Not exactly the shade I had in mind (I was picturing something a little more chalky teal) but once there was one coat on, Ben told me we weren't changing the color. I think the color looks fine now that we are done.

Ben replaced one of the lights, the outlets and light switches and we were done. I would love to get a new counter in the bathroom but at this point it is good enough.

Here are some pictures of the transformation!

The before pictures:

The cabinets before

Notice those classy hinges!

The tub before...yuck!

The original color around the edge

 The After...

All done!

New hardware!

Bright white tub!

New outlets/switches!

This was a nice 1 week project that wasn't too labor intensive. This week as I mentioned earlier we began demo on the kitchen. The kitchen project is bound to be full of interesting experiences and is by far our most complicated project to date. Updates on that coming soon.

Cheers,

Ali