It's like magic

I left at 7am for work on Friday. The sheet rock was up, plain and sheet rocky. I came home Friday from work, the sheet rock had texture, the plastic around the laundry closet/refrigerator area was gone and I could see straight outside instead of through cloudy plastic. The kitchen looked bigger, but it took me a while to realize it was because the refrigerator itself had been pushed into the hole designed for it. It really feels like magic, I go to work and come home to a home that is different, poof, what money and labor can do.

We have our kitchen back for a couple more weeks before the counters are torn out and it becomes not so usable for a while. The kids don't even seem to realize that anything is different, they just ride their bike through the plastic doors and over the bumps of the protective floor covering as if it's just a new obstacle. Hatie keeps asking where Thomas (the Foreman) is and Olivia smiles at everyone who comes in the door.

Peter wanted me to write about the "green" stuff we are doing, so here goes:

A busy day all around

It's been a busy day:

• Peter met a new client
• Jen went back to work for the first time in two months
• Peter dropped off lots of "junk" at Goodwill
  
• Jen worked all evening at back-to-school night
  
• Peter fed Willa successfully twice (yea!)
  
• Olivia peed in the potty on command
• Peter consulted with our GC on yet more custom cabinet engineering plan details
• Peter watched our dining room and laundry closet go from open framing to drywall and 'mudded'
• Hatie & Olivia actually slept through banging and drilling and vacuuming in the next room
  
• Olivia said a six-word sentence
• Peter picked up a new LED pendant light for the new counter space (looks nice!)
  
• Peter worked 5 hours
• took some great videos of Olivia's cuteness
• The kids all went to the zoo
  

Olivia is still sick and coughing, though she is sleeping much better as of last night.  Willa is at about the same stage.  Hatie so far has pretty much avoided the ick, fortunately.  She doesn't nap a preschool, though, so she sleeps a lot when she is home or else she gets totally out of control.

Tomorrow I've got all the kids all day alone, so let's hope Willa eats well.  The guys will be doing more drywall work - hopefully everything will be nice and neat before the weekend starts.  it may actually look like a room again! (albeit an unpainted one).  And our fridge actually will be shoved into it's intended space, too, so we'll have more room to maneuver.  More pictures of the construction to come soon.  Now it's back to work...

Kitchen Remodel: Days 9-13 - slowing down a bit

Wednesday - Sunday, September 23-27, 2009

Wow, quite a lengthy session Thursday morning poring through the cabinet engineering drawing that we got last night.  We spent almost two hours with Seth going through almost every measurement to verify it.  We did catch a few mistakes and a few issues that we hadn't considered, and made a few changes as well.  Hopefully they all make sense to Nandi et. al. at Rivendell and they'll get updated drawings back to us soon that we like.

The latter half of this week has been slower than previous days.  Had a plumber spend a couple hours here Friday fixing a crack in the clothes washer pipe that was created during demo, and re-running the dryer gas and fridge water lines.  Friday was a ocst-cutting day for Berkeley, so the inspection services were closed, so we'll have to schedule on Monday an electrical inspection hopefully for Tuesday.  Then they can start drywalling on Wednesday.  Critical path is still the cabinets, so we're expecting to finalize those ASAP.

I want to put in a ventilation system for the media cabinet, but am having a hard time figuring out whether I can realistically spend a couple hundred bucks for vents and fans and have it work well enough, or if I have to buy something upscale like this, which costs several hundred bucks.  The local upscale audio store recommended the expensive one (of course), but it looks like their markup is way high.  I think I'm going to go for the good solution, but get it online for almost half the price.  This is something that is moveable, too, so conceivably if it continues to work for a long time I could use it elsewhere after a second-floor remodel or something like that.

We're trying to make a final decision on the dining room lamp, and have lots of options.  I'll have Jen post the links.  We are also eagerly awaiting the arrival of our outdoor heaters - hopefully Monday.