Since Scott wont be here until Monday (or Tuesday, depending on the direction of Hurricane Sandy)…there is a list that has been started…details

• Need to cut the grass one more time
• Pull the AC from the bedroom window (we have central air, but why cool the whole house when that is the only room we are in at night)…there is a story behind how the window AC idea came to light, but that’s another blog :))
• Organize my office…now this is always an ongoing process, but I had a hardware upgrade in one of the PC’s, tested some Cisco/iPhone connection cables (which means I needed something Cisco to be pulled out)…my desk is super stacked with paperwork…yeah, not liking this
• exchange kitchen blinds for the right size…trip to Ikea
• The kitchen list:  finish cabinet pulls on all the drawers, paint/seal the backsplash, paint the front cap of the countertop, screw down the wonderboard…I’m sure there’s more tp

It’s been a while since my last post.  There has been alot going on!  We have made at least one trip a day to Home Depot, Lowes, Ikea and/or Avalon Floor and Tile and I’m sure this trend will continue because we are getting to the big smaller projects.

Plumbing, the lines all need to be extended to the back of the house, so 8′ or so…we are heat tape wrapping them because they are in the crawl space and not the house, so why take a chance.  Dishwasher and Garbage Disposal are on the plumbing list too.

Electricity, we have to make a couple runs to the outlet box…dishwasher, garbage disposal, GFI switch near the sink and the Bistro Lighting needs to be done too.

Heating, this one is crazy…there was a heat vent behind the dishwasher that I always thought was an intake…because it was right next to the exterior wall, so you couldnt feel any air coming out of it…well, we are moving that…it will come out at the toe-kick right under the sink cabinet…warm tootsies in the winter, cool tootsies in the summer!!  woot woot!

The biggest project that remains is the countertop…today, Scott comes with table saw, epoxy glue, lots of wood screws and wonderboard.

We have decided…but not without a story

Avalon is in DE, across the street, on 202,from the Lowes (where the Brandywine Racetrack used to be).  There was ALOT that we liked, but Jen and I both liked the black granite the best, there was even a partial highlight tile designed to go between the plain tiles.  So now we have the idea of what we really like…so we ran over to Lowes to return some extra floor tiles and grout and look at their tiles that we would consider for the countertop.  We found the granite tiles there, $2.00 cheaper per tile, and I had a couple coupons, so we really saved a nice little chunk on this purchase  🙂

We decided that we would really like the highlight tile, so we pulled a tile from the case and went back to Avalon, it matched but then we found out that there is a 2-3 month lead time on every “non-stock” item.  Now, a week, maybe 2, I can see, but who in the hell knows what countertop or even flooring they want 2-3 months before they start their project??

We did, however, order the tile for the backsplash from them, that only has a week to 10 day lead time…that, I can live with!!

Way back in the ‘galley kitchen’ pre-planning days I said to Scott, can we get a countertop that long?  He says, we can do anything we want…well, in my head, one long countertop.  Not!

So the discussion goes to…what can we do??  butt 2 countertops together?  nah!  2 tiers? I like this idea, except now we need to raise some of the cabinets before installation. custom made, ceramic tiles, so we did a google image search for custom countertops

Scott suggests going to Avalon Carpet Tile and Floors 

There was a holdup on the wall of cabinets being installed….first and fore-most…the DIRTY windows!  11 years of not being cleaned, drywall dust and all the things we have stirred up since the beginning, stuck to the window like glue.  We had to call in a professional (THANKS SHIRLEY B!!)

Missing hinges for 1 cabinet door…

Wiped out 3 Home Depots for the 41 cabinet pulls needed…

Scott was here all day!  We got the all of the high cabinets in, the base cabinets below the high cabinets.  Built the first three cabinets for the long wall so that Scott can cut the cabinet that goes over the stump.

Pictures later…

The last few days have been a blur…we put on the first coat of wall paint and 2 coats of ceiling paint, it’s really looking good.  We did do the second coat of wall paint on the wall that we are starting the cabinets on.

Most of the cabinets are built for day 1 of the hangings….we are ready (kinda)

Scott was here today, he tells me that I am probably too much a perfectionist and that I am scrutinizing too much over the joint compound…well, duh!  kathy == perfectionist at times

He did alot more joint compounding and told us to paint and we can deal with the imperfections after painting…

He re-connected the lights in the back part of the kitchen, drywalled around Jen’s office side of the moved door, also cut and laid the last pieces of tile for the doorway between Jen’s office and the kitchen

The details are happening 🙂

This is my most absolute least favorite job, maybe if it were a smaller room I would have more patience with it, but the perfectionist in me gets in the way.  After hours of Jen sanding things and there still being so many dips and valleys, I kinda put a stop to it.  I felt like we were defeating the purpose.  This has put us back a week, but after all the hard work, the last thing I want to do is screw it up because I am being impatient.

We may have stopped the work in the kitchen, but we did not stop working.  We went to Ikea, took dad’s pickup and my jeep, just to be sure that we wouldnt have to do this in 2 trips (and it’s a good thing that we did, we needed both autos).

Home Depot run for the window trim and half of the cabinet pulls (I think the average kitchen uses 23 pulls, because that’s all they have in stock…and I have read reviews for these pulls and 23 seems to be the magic number)

still plenty of work to do before painting…gotta get to it!

These seem to be the worst steps to date…time consuming and never perfect.

The grout leaves a HAZE on the entire floor, so you have to wipe the floor down about 5 times before it starts to look like the tile you layed a few days before.  We did some google searching and found a vinegar//water combination that removes the haze, so I have been down on the floor wiping each grout line to get it ready for the sealer (that will be just as tedious).  I am determined to get this done today!

The drywall compound, well, Scott says that we are almost ready for paint, we need to sand (have to seal the grout first) and make markings to let him know where it’s not great and not behind a future cabinet.