Demo Fever

Demo fever is something that August and I both suffer from on occasions like... this past Wednesday night. For some reason it just seemed like tearing up the carpet in the hallway was more appropriate than continuing to work on the kitchen. So that's what we did... No more carpet staircase either.

What we found was a mixed bag - the hallway looks pretty great. Just like the living room / dining room, that red oak is some tough stuff. The staircase is in worse shape. Its made of pine... Who's bright idea was that? I don't know if the picture below really shows how banged up they are. I mean its not *terrible* but it is the first thing you see when you come in the front door... so.... I don't think replacing the treads will be a big deal. There are only 11 of them in the entire house.

A Quick Post About Milk

Well, our two-week break on house work is now over. August's hunting trip came and went. I went home and back. And we had two dear friends in town all last week.

I wanted to share one cool thing about living in Longmont - The Longmont Dairy Farm. In fact we have a lot of dairies and other cattle operations here in CO. I'm sure of this because the price of milk and steak at grocery store is usually quite low. Milk is typically $1.58/gallon. Can you believe it? But, the cool thing about the Longmont Dairy Farm is that they deliver... Fresh milk to your doorstep... On Tuesdays... In glass bottles... How cool is that?!

With the minimum order of 3 bottles (we get 2 bottles of white and 1 bottle of chocolate), plus a small delivery charge, our monthly bill was ~$35. This is approximately seven times what I would normally spend on milk in a month. And its about the maximum amount of milk we can possibly drink. I think I'm getting a little sick of milk trying to drink it all. However, we figured it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. So, we'll probably keep it up for another month or so, and then allot that $30 elsewhere.

Our new shower..

What do you think of it?? It CHANGES COLORS, just like a mood ring.



The science nerd in me says its a cool idea but at $150/sq ft, my inner economist is saying no.

Progress

It was a bit of a saga but the countertops in the main part of the kitchen are installed, grouted, everything. The drama? Turns out that its hard to be precise and perfect when you are working with a substance called "mud". Used to having everything right down to the 1/64th of an inch, tiling was a little out of our comfort zone. Some of the grout lines were larger than they should be, some of the junctions weren't quite lined up, some of the tiles are slightly lower than some of the other tiles. However, the nice black grout went in and it fairly well smoothed everything out. And even August thinks that everything looks okay now.

And as of last night, even the sink is installed. hallelujah! The desk area (i.e. kitchen annex) is also *almost* done. Should be done by Friday. What in the world will we do with our 3.5 day weekend?? I'm sure will think of something. Shelving is high on my priority list.

The desk area...

And a random shot of me, to prove that I do occasionally do some work myself.

A Glimpse

Here's a little peek into what life's like around our house, pretty much any day of the week.



Our clever intent was to score the underside of this particular piece of hardiebacker and then just pop that sink cutout right out.. It didn't work out that way. We did of course get it out eventually, but it took lots of tearing, bending, etc etc etc.

We have granite!

It was a big weekend. We finally got the granite tiles for the countertop. The final decision was for "butterfly green" - green with some gray in it. This one wasn't exactly listed on the website, so we didn't even know it was an option until we got to the store. I love it though, its gonna look great with the slate floors. Its better than any of the other colors we considered... Unfortunately no pictures of it are really turning out, but you get the idea...

Guess what else came on Saturday - a giant arrangement of chocolate-dipped fruits... A fabulous birthday gift from August's mom & sister. What you can't tell in this picture is that I had already eaten the back side of the arrangement. mmm mmm...

The Fridge Cabinet

We have officially cleared the biggest cabinet installation hurdle of all - {ominous music} the 24" deep over-fridge cabinet. Why so challenging? Well, being very conscious of our limited kitchen space, I only left a half inch of spare un-utilized wall in the design. Second, this cabinet is giant - it had to be hung from the ceiling as well as the wall. Third, perfection is key here. Everything needs to be square, plumb, level, lined up, etc etc, or else the fridge may not fit at all....

There were some tense moments for sure but its all done now. Of course we won't be test fitting the fridge so fingers crossed... I'm sure it will be fine...

The picture above is August's bracing just before cabinet installation. If a 400-lb gorilla ever wants to move in up there, he will be a-okay. (Can you see the duck sticking its tongue out at you? I was quite amused...)

Of course, it ended up being a tight fit and we actually had to grind off some of the screw heads. And slick it up with bar soap. And give it a few good whacks. The finished product looks pretty great though.