The Light

At the end of the tunnel! Its visible! The kitchen project that never ends is nearly over. The "TO DO" list would fit on one hand these days. I have a secret plan to be finished with ALL of it over the Thanksgiving holiday. That will be appropriate because we kicked off this project with a trip to the fancy lumber store over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2008. The remaining items:

1) Make a kick board for the peninsula.
2) Make a little spacer block for the crown molding. (5 min tops)
3) Route out the glass doors and assemble them.
4) Order the glass.
5) Trim, route, and assemble the remaining frames for drawer fronts.
6) Stain items 1,2,3, and 5.
7) Attach spacers to drawer fronts.
8) Install all that stuff.
9) A little caulk maybe.

Okay two hands.

The New Addition

He's here folks! I think he likes the house pretty well.

In fact, he's six weeks old now. Since his arrival, we have gotten *a little* bit of work done on the kitchen. All the doors are hung and operational now. All that's left is the drawer fronts. Anybody know where to get a 20mm forstner bit that doesn't cost $40?

Baby room - getting there!

The baby room is functional now... All major furniture purchased. Pictures on the wall. Now we just need the baby, and probably some diapers.

Here's the view from the hallway door.


Here's the glider we picked up off craigslist today. I'm still scoping for one that's "exactly what I'm looking for", but they are hard to come by. I've only seen a couple in the past 2 months and both were gone before I could get to them. This one looks good enough though.

These are some of August's baby clothes - too cute to hang in the closet.

And a close up of my bumper. Turned out pretty well!

0 to 60 in... a couple of days

Here's the "zero" - from before we moved in. Don't worry, those drapes left with the previous owner.


And here's the work of just 2 days. Ceiling retextured. Carpet out. Walls and trim painted. Ceiling fan installed. New sheets. Now all we need is maybe some curtains, and a couple of matching night stands.


I feel so grown up now!! A good thing, since we are expecting to become parents in the next few weeks! See next post!

Quick question

So, we have been slowly adding to our collection of framed stuff to hang on the walls.. Its an expensive venture but well worth it. I am planning to get some old family photos reprinted and framed as well, particularly these:



Aren't they cool? The girl sitting in the dirt with a gun is my grandmother...

So the question - to crop or not to crop? The shadows of the photographers are kinda cool on one hand, a part of the story. On the other hand, that's a lot of dirt...

Okay, one other question, would you frame them in the same frame or separate?

Here's one more that I love! May put this one in baby boy's room...

For love of a pin nailer.. (continued)

We've put that handy pin nailer to use on another issue - cabinet crown molding.

Why I insisted on included crown molding above the upper cabinets? I don't know. Having those cabinets go straight to the ceiling would've been just fine... but, you know, hindsight...

We (I?) fretted about the process for months off and on. Remember what our crown molding motto is? "Cut close and caulk". Yeah, doesn't work so well on stained molding. Remember Franken-corner? Oh the horrors... Anyway, I'll spare you the drama and details but we made one hugely smart decision on this crown molding: to cut it out and assemble it on the ground, not in the air like we normally would. This way the corners look perfect.. Certainly there are gaps and imperfections in other places (small ones, August is still a perfectionist), but the corners are PERFECT.

And we of course used the pin nailer to attach the pieces, so you can't even see the little holes.

For love of a pin nailer

Alternately titled: Look at what we did in the month of June!

We have done some fun stuff these past few weeks, such as FINALLY getting started on those pesky cabinet doors. In retrospect, the process we selected to make our very simple doors is NOT very simple. Well, it kinda is simple but its VERY time consuming: cut out panels -> stain front (x3) -> stain back (x3) -> polyurethane front (x3) polyurethane back (x3) -> cut out frame pieces -> assemble -> stain (x3) -> poly (x3). Doesn't take a math whiz to know that all those "x3"s equals a very drawn-out process. Regardless, we have pushed about half of the doors through about half of that process... And here is where I mention the nifty tool we needed to "expedite" things - a pin nailer.


It literally nails with pins, headless pins at that. They are TINY. So, here's a shot of pin nail use in the cabinet doors:

This way, the pins hold the doors while the glue dries, no need for dozens of clamps. Here's the doors underway... Frames still need staining.