By the chimney with care

The IKEA artwork is now hanging by the chimney with care.

I also got some more switches in today. Unfortunately one of the switches that Amazon sent wasn't working so I had to pull it out and need to replace it again. 

The master closet is painted, lights are in, and the outlets are in. There are only a few more things to do before it is a useful closet.

Front porch progress

As the dry weather was ending we dealt with some of the items on the front porch. There are dinner cedar beams that I was worried would need to be painted because they had weather too much. I started sanding them to paint and the wood grain still looked good. After a lot of sanding and some wood cleaner they got way too attractive to just paint over. We got some exterior wood oil and they came out really well. It will take some maintenance, but we love the exposed wood.

A Closet

We have been way behind in posting updates on progress due to trying to race to get as much done as possible before winter came. Well, winter is here. We managed to clean up the cedar for the front porch that we thought was gone and needed to be painted. Instead it is oiled and presenting it's full beauty as wood. We managed to finish up the front porch, but the tile contractor didn't get here in time to install tile before the rains. Instead we managed to get a coat of paint of the porch that should keep it protected through the winter. We have transitioned to working inside, mainly on painting. The master closet of now painted. The lights and outlets are installed.

From the outside it doesn't look like much, but the progress is rewarding.

Conduit and Thanksgiving

It's been a bit since we blogged.  This was thanksgiving weekend, and while we didn't host on thanksgiving day, we did host on the Saturday after, and made a great meal for family in our new kitchen.  The house is seeming to come together.  October was spent working on the front porch.  We have more curb appeal now.  It's not done, but more water proof while we coordinate with our tile guy.  And today, was conduit in the garage to let us plug in our electric car in the garage. 

Counters, a sink, and a cooktop!

The counters were installed about a week and a half ago.  Last weekend we did almost everything needed to get the sink, cooktop, and downdraft fan working.  But we were missing a piece for the garbage disposal, so couldn't get it all hooked up till midweek.  Today was finishing touches, door pulls, and wiring the outlets on the island.  It's amazing having a fully functional kitchen again.  I'm so happy with how it all came together.  

Moving outside

The kitchen is ready and waiting for the counters to be installed. The installer came out and measured for templates. Now we just need to hurry up and wait for them to come back out for the installation. We are still waiting on a installation date.

We moved on to curb appeal items and are working to get the front porch framed. Hopefully we can get a lot of that wrapped up before the rainy season. This weekend we finished up getting the materials for the front porch and started framing. We got the smallest section of three structurally framed. We also worked out how to make the steps work. Next weekend we hope to be able to get the second section framed.

The details of the island took a lot longer than expected. Today we finished up enough to call out the counter top contractors to measure and start fabricating the counters. We will have a somewhat normal kitchen before long. It is an exciting day.

Ply Rough Fit

Island is Ready

More little cabinets and corbels

We got the third cabinet and corbel installed.  The island is slow, but it's going to be beautiful!

Realization of a concept

We pulled all the electrical wires for the island on Saturday. As a bit of a celebration we ended up pulling some speaker wires for the TV after wrapping up the island wiring. Everything went well and it feels good to have the wires pulled. We were a bit concerned that it would be difficult to pull all the wires for the island.

On Sunday we finalized on dimensions for the island. We started fitting the pieces together for the raised bar counter and the counter top extension. It came together the way we hoped. We will not have to sacrifice much space for the electrical runs because there are little spaces between the shallow cabinets to run wires where the corbels fit between the shallow cabinets.

Corbel for the bar height counter

The main counter side

La Isla Bonita

We made great progress on our beautiful kitchen island on Cinco de Mayo.  It doesn't look too different today to the casual observer, but Ian performed surgery on the cabinets so that the cook top, down draft hood, and all the utilities will fit.

Good Friday

It has been some time since the last post. I have the day off work today and got a mirror up in one of the bathrooms.

New Bathroom Mirror

Reorganization

Cheryl and I spent a lot of yesterday working out the final details on how the kitchen island will come together. We are really happy with the details. I took today off and we spent the day organizing, cleaning, and making things more homey. A dining room table is now setup. There is a couch in the family room area. We could pull the car into the garage if we wanted. It was a bunch of little steps, but it feels great to have spent the time getting organized. The hope is that organizing will help the next steps go faster.

Taking shape

It does not take too much imagination to figure out that this is the kitchen. The space for the fridge is a bit snug, but we can still open the doors. The right door is not able to open as much as the fridge allows. Even with the limited opening you can still get to everything, the drawers pull out fully, and can be removed to clean.

Looking like a kitchen

We unpacked a couple of the island cabinets and also ran the dishwasher without anything in it. It is exciting that we will have a dishwasher after many years without one. It was amazingly quiet. It is really only noticeable when it is draining water. We might have been over concerned about noise from the dishwasher, but quieter is better than louder. We have no complaints so far about the Bosch dishwasher. We do need to see how well it cleans dishes before jumping to conclusions.

Starting to layout the island

The fireplace and bathroom tile is wrapping up in addition to the progress on the kitchen. We are happy with how the fireplace is taking shape. It is a bit sterile right now, but we are probably going to add a mantle that should make it feel a bit warmer.

Tiled fireplace

All in all this is a rewarding week. We are now making progress on finish details that give us a sense of what the finished product is going to look like. Things are not perfect. However, they are coming together in a way that brings a smile to our faces.

Oven!

We got the oven installed today. We were terrified about lifting the oven into place, but it really was not that bad. The microwave disconnected, the oven door comes off, and it all went back together. I'm going to go buy groceries to make dinner.