Countertop, microwave and wallpaper, oh my!

The countertops.  And the wallpaper.

And the microwave, with it's attendant cabinet.

Thank you Tyler!!

Oh yes! and the electrical outlet at the end of the bar.  My incredible husband.

Does anyone know where our third high backed, swiveling barstool is?

Kitchen Progress

Yay!  So last you knew, we'd just covered the studs with drywall and filled the pantry with shelves.

Then Tyler taught himself how to mud and tape the walls with incredible success, and we'll just shampoo the carpet after we're all done remodeling.  That goes without saying, right?  He did a fantastic job on the new doorway to the kitchen.  We used bull-nose corner bead because we wanted a rounded edge to the wall there and it turned out really great!  

In the picture below, you can see the area at the top of the room in the corners where we removed the space-wasting soffit that used to be above our old cabinets.  Doing that involved repairing the ceiling and it was really intimidating, but Ty did a marvelous job!  I'm so proud of my wonderful husband!  You can also see the new light fixture above the sink that he installed.  I love him!

Trying to live and cook in a kitchen that's being remodeled is not an easy thing.  The pole-sander in the corner next to the stove made the sanding easier, but the whole business is a very messy, drywall-dust-covered affair!  

The above photo shows how the walls looked underneath the old cabinets.  Apparently, some one in the past was trying to find a wall-stud with a hammer, instead of using his brain.  That's the only way to explain the mess over the stove.  I looked this way for about three weeks and then last Friday, Ty did the texturing and priming, and on Saturday, Ty and his brother hung the upper cabinets.  

I came home from steaming grape juice at my friend's house with all the kids in tow, and this is what greeted me in the kitchen.

Wonder of Wonders!!

Miracle of Miracles!

And it was only one more day before the floor was mended, and the lower cabinets started getting put together!  You can see how excited Lizzy is about that!  

I think I'm going to go clear off my fridge right now.

Ty is very careful and thoughtful about everything.

Here it is finished!  Connected together and to the wall and the floor.  I am overjoyed!

Tomorrow, the countertop!

This is Kurt, as Wolverine, on Monday. 

At least the costume didn't come with adamantium claws.

Here's a funny pic.  Apparently I have a One- headed, Two-Bodied, Three-armed, Four-legged child lurking some where in my house.  Maybe it came with the new cabinets.

This is a terrible picture of a cell phone pic of the wallpaper I've ordered for the kitchen backsplash area.  Butterflies and Red flowers with green leaves on cream/tan background.  Well?

Then and now: Google Satellite pictures

 This picture is from the summer before we moved in, say, July 2007.

The one on the bottom is newly taken this year in June.  

Much better, say I.

Spare time for bits and pieces

So,  I'm up early and have a minute to post some dozen pictures or so:

These are of my new corner pantry.  You can see I've put a clear shoe organizer on the inside of the door, and for right now, it's working great, although, it swings and clanks against the door, so we'll be trying to secure it at the bottom soon to stop that.   Below is a close shot of my old upper cabinet lazy susan that Ty let me install in the new pantry.  It had to go through one of the shelves, but I think I like it even more than before.  It's perfect for keeping spices and the like manageable.  

When the shelves were put in this pantry, I cleared out all the upper cabinets over the stove and around the sink.  When I was done, those items had only filled about four shelves in the pantry.  By the time we're done with this kitchen, storage space in it will have increased exponentially.

Now I have a functional place to put my buckets of flour, oatmeal, beans and sugar!

These are the raspberries.  They've exceeded the bed by about three feet on all sides.  We've got to figure out how to contain them by next year, and how to trellis them so they can be kept more upright. 

Pear tree and pumpkin patch

Garden view from east side of yard

Back fence and new side fence on north

Blueberries and Elderberries and Rhubarb in big pots

Big green leafhopper that was eating leaves on our raspberry bushes

Morning Glory!

Our second set of three, three and under.

Our new Back door and screen door

Just inside the backdoor, Ty added an "L"-shaped wall to make a mud room, or walk in coat closet.  That's one reason that we were able to sacrifice the front hall closet to the kitchen remodel.

Those black things are shoe storage, and there's peg board all over the inside to hang things from.

The shelf above is great and below is a bench, with more shoe buckets underneath.

Before Tag was born, we installed cordless shades in the sunroom.

This is a new curtain I made for the bedroom

Front Garden views:

The iron railing is now black, as it should be, since Ty painted it.

Fall strawberries

My Favorite color of snapdragons

The new side front fence on the north perfectly matches the one on the south, and cost us nothing!  Thank you neighbors!

Connect these three pictures, and you can see the front view of our house.

And at the beginning of August, we replaced the furnace and added an air conditioner, which allowed us to get rid of the swamp cooler.  Next year we'll fix the roof where the shaft stump is now.

Not too bad though, considering what it used to be, right?   Even the grass is greener.