Prep work

There was a lot of busy work and prep work this weekend. I finished some of the electrical in the master bedroom. We are pushing to finish the bedroom and bathroom so we can move upstairs. The bathroom floors were uneven and we learned the hard way what happens when you lay tile on an uneven floor. Self leveling compound does a great job and is relatively easy to do. Just mix with water and pour on the floor. You only have a few minutes of working time so you do have to work fast. Now the floors are level and we should be ready for tile.... If we ever pick any out that is.

Here's a couple pictures of our marble slab we picked out. Can't wait to get this installed!

Starting the second floor

We started work over the weekend on the master bedroom.  As you might notice, the master bedroom currently houses things like our chop saw and bathtub (hiding from potential damage under the big white box) so it doesn't look very masterful or much like a bedroom at the moment but at least it is now painted.  My blackberry camera seems to be casting the walls in a purplish color but they are actually a dark grey.  We went with a dark color because the bedroom gets so much light and will have a great deal of white trim once we add baseboards, crown moulding, and window trim (someday).  Next up will be clearing out the room and laying the floor - and then we can start to move some of our stuff out of the living room and upstairs to a bedroom!

Another day closer

I had the day off so I installed our cabinets pulls. Stuff like this is tedious but it does makes it a lot easier to use our cabinets since they are full overlays and there's not much room to grab the doors. We went with IKEA lansa pulls since they're relatively inexpensive and they go well with the cabinets and appliances. The back of the island got a simple IKEA strecket pull so they are not a noticeable, but still useful.

More kitchen work

We cleaned up the kitchen a bit and started getting more organized today. It's starting to feel like a usable space again. There are now temporary counters until we get our new ones. We ended up deciding to go with Carrera marble and hopefully we will have them installed in a couple weeks. The dining space got a new light fixture as well as one of our Flor rugs we had laying around. The microwave got moved to the pantry so I had to run a new circuit in there for it. A lot of small details were finished today even if it doesn't look like much.

Kitchen details

I took the day off to finish a few things in the kitchen. The island needed some trim pieces on the side and we needed to install the electrical before the countertops get installed. We now have a ton of outlets to choose from. There are two 36 inch strips under the cabinets and an outlet on each end of the island. Everything blends in nicely. Hopefully tomorrow we will have the countertops picked out and ordered. I also have a new iPhone so the photos will be much better from now on. It's still a little messy but we are getting closer to the finished kitchen.

Cabinets installed

The last two cabinets took us a few extra hours of planning, but they are now installed. Both the fridge cabinet and pantry required exact filler strips and left zero room for error. To help us out we bought a new toy yesterday in the form of a Rigid table saw. Just what we needed! The kitchen turned out better than we had in our heads and the countertops aren't even in yet. The design is very open and working in it is great. Everything is within a step or two. The only problem is when the sun is out it's almost too bright. Not a bad problem to have, but we may need to find some shades for the french doors. Next up we need to put up the crown molding, cabinet pulls, backsplash, molding around the rest of the room, and a few lights and we'll have the first finished room in the house!

No more paper plates

Another milestone was passed this week. We finally have a sink with running water in the kitchen! There's not much countertop space, but we do have a working disposal and dishwasher now. No need to use paper plates and plastic utensils any more. I hooked up all the water lines and the drains the other day. The faucet is from the old kitchen so it will suffice until we get our new one. Last night the vent hood was sealed up as well. We also started unpacking all the old cabinets and various boxes in the basement where our kitchen stuff is stashed. This weekend we'll finish off the pantry and fridge cabinets to complete the kitchen. Plus we're getting rid of our old kitchen by selling it on Craigslist. Should open up some living space around here and start feeling like a home again.