Our Kitchen, Phase I

 Welcome to phase I of our kitchen makeover.  This past week, we have had the soffit removed, lighting replaced and re-wired (we won't hang the pendant until the end so we don't break them getting the island in), and the countertops and backsplash removed.  Our cat has had a vacation at C's mom's house and Ritz has been going to work with C.  It has been much easier without them in the worker's hair all week.

Phase 2 (this week) consists of templates for the granite, the beginning of building the island (off site), confirming the paint color of the cabinets and the final cabinet design, and rehanging of cabinets.  The granite people were supposed to come Friday; but had to cancel, so they will be here today. It can't come soon enough--I'm ready to have a sink and running water in the kitchen again.  Also, once the mudding of the drywall is done, we will try to paint this week because the cabinets are getting refinished next week. We have settled on continuing the khaki hallway color (called Ponytail). 

 Clean freak hubby is at his wits end already. We cleaned the house today and did the best we could picking up the kitchen, but the dust is clearly getting to him (and the rest of the house).  Hopefully, we will be done with everything by the beginning of July.  It is amazing how much bigger the space looks without the soffit and without the dark cabinets.  I am thrilled to be having a light, bright, and airy kitchen hopefully!

BEFORE:

We covered our stove so it won't get too dusty and beat up.

Our dining room, turned into makeshift kitchen cabinets.  It is amazing how much we had in those things--this is only our upper cabinets.

The location and dimension of our island/breakfast bar (with the spot marking the middle for the pendant lighting). 

DAY ONE: MONDAY

Soffit and lighting removed.  If you look closely at the beams, you will realize our builder chopped up our load bearing wall to put duct-work through them.  We had to rebuild support beams to fix this problem.  They also began the backsplash removal. For whatever reason, the backsplash ran up to soffit, so the cabinets had to be removed completely.

 

DAY TWO: TUESDAY

The electrician came and installed the can lighting (also known as the five suns as they are so bright) and moved the wiring for the pendants to be centered over the island  We opted for the extra bright halogen reflective cans, which should be great to ensure we have enough light in our kitchen.  We are debated about installing under cabinet lighting as well. Thoughts on this? We are waiting to see how bright it is with the cabinets re-hung before making any final decisions either way.

 

We also determined the vent is necessary for our advantium cooker, so we will have to build a cabinet to fit around it.

 

Here is the only way we can repair our load bearing wall: installing 2x4s between the beams to keep them stable and aligned. We also found live wires that had to be stripped.

  

 

Every room has turned into a storage room.  Our poor mudroom has doubled as our coffee bar.

DAY THREE:WEDNESDAY

Drywall is hung and the beginning of clean up. 

 

DAY FOUR: THURSDAY

Drywall is in the process of mudding and the countertops and sink are removed so that the granite company can come make their proper template.

Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder..or Graphic Designer

And I feel like this is something every woman (and especially teenage girl) should see. I often grow tired of trying to look as beautiful as these faces and find myself wishing or thinking i could be prettier. This puts it all back into prospective:
 


Here is additional proof of the powers of photo shop..

Faith Hill

Katie Couric

Madonna

Jessica Alba

Here is just what the wonders of a make up artist and hair stylist can do: 

Mariah Carey

Ashely Tisdale

Cameron Diaz

Angelia Jolie

Lisa Kudrow

Jennifer Lopez

Eva Longria

Blakely Lively

Katherine Heigl

Tyra Banks

Penelope Cruz

Halle Berry

Just reinforcement that not only are these are not only beautiful women after, they are beautiful women before--just like you or I. I think we all need to be reminded of that more often. 

Here are some of my favorite beauty quotations:

Beauty is an experience, nothing else. It is not a fixed pattern or an arrangement   of features. It is something felt, a glow or a communicated sense of fineness.   What ails us is that our sense of beauty is so bruised and blunted, we miss   all the best.

         -D.H. Lawrence

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep   enough. What do you want—an adorable pancreas?

         -Jean Elliot

Wordless Wednesday: My Day Today of Document Review

Top Ten Tuesday: Pendant Lighting

So the house is officially a disaster.  We are getting our lighting done today (can lighting installed and the wiring for the pendant installation), so I figured a post about pendant lighting would be in order.  This is the style pendant we selected: stainless steel drop pendants that look like this:

Here are ten other pendant lights that I liked or inspired my choice: 

Let the Destruction Begin

Grrr..anyone else's blogger not work all morning? Sorry this is later in the day, but I kept getting an error when I tried to post this morning.

Anniversary weekend went well. Cam and I went to dinner downtown and then out for drinks (and late night Goodfella's pizza) with a few friends. Last night, we opened up an anniversary bottle of wine (we had guests at the rehearsal sign bottles of wine that we are opening on various anniversaries) and made stirfry. We also cleaned up the house, went to Lowe's and picked up 6 recessed can lights, and moved practically everything out of our kitchen because....

our kitchen remodel begins today!

We are getting our soffit taken out, the lighting installed, the backsplash and counters taken out, the room re-painted, the island built, new counter installed, and then the cabinets painted. The work should be completed by the end of June. 

In honor of our remodel, here are two coupons from Lowes:

This one is apparently a better deal percentage-wise for a smaller purchase (20% off a $50 purchase but a 10% off a $250 purchase).  But, who am I to question coupons?