Cinnamon Rolls

This girl loves cinnamon rolls. She wanted to make sure she knows how to make them so she can make them all the time when she is on her own.  She made these on her own with a few pointers from me.  I think they turned out great!

yum

Yahoo! It's Done!

After 5 weeks of being kitchen-less we are finally done! We absolutely love our new kitchen and living room. We are still waiting on a few details such as our above-stove microwave, a replacement shelf in one of the cabinets and a few spots of paint touch up that need to be done. All in all though, we are DONE and it is such a relief to be in a working kitchen again, and even better that it turned out so beautiful.

Happiness Is Here Again

We have a sink! Hallelujah.

Almost Done!

We have had so much going on today! We had guys working on trim, building shelves in the pantry, installing countertops, finishing up electrical stuff, covering up the old window with siding. I am POOPED! (No, really. I have been running around all crazy answering questions, making sure the right person has the right info, plus takin' care of the kiddos etc.)

Here's how it looks now. We'll get a sink tomorrow (yahoo) and our new stove and dishwasher are going to arrive on Saturday. Just a FEW MORE DAYS! HOORAY.

They're SO Beautiful

We thought our cabinets weren't going to be installed until tomorrow but lo and behold, they came today. (HOORAY). I just can't stop looking at them because they are so beautiful.

The Latest

Here's how it looks. We are getting the cabinets on Tuesday.

Recent Pictures

So are you all getting bored of seeing pictures of the kitchen and not hearing about anything else? Too bad. Here you go. More pictures.

The texturing on the walls and ceiling is done now. We are ready to paint! After that comes the floor, cabinets and countertops. I am hoping we'll be done in 2 weeks. The novelty of this is SOOOO worn off. Not that it was ever fun or novel, but it is even LESS so now that we are through the 3rd week. (Hmm, what am I gonna cook in the crock pot for dinner tomorrow??? Blah.)

Day 16: *&#$^!

Subtitle: Asbestos is evil
Sub-subtitle: We are all gonna die.

Yeah. So, where do I even start?

We had an asbestos inspector come the other day and take some samples of the old building materials in our house to test for asbestos. We thought that since we had scraped the popcorn ceiling in our living room 2 years ago we'd be fine in the carcinogen department. That popcorn ceiling ended up having 8% asbestos, which is a very high percentage. (Exposure incident #1. I can see the little fibers making their permanent home in my alveoli.)

We got the results today that we have asbestos (1%) in the vinyl glue that was used to attach the old flooring to the plywood. While it IS better than the 8% that is already in our lungs it is bad for several reasons. (Well, at least a thousand reasons financially speaking.....)

• We were going to have all the residual glue sanded down instead of using a sub floor under our flooring. Since they can't sand it down now we will have to have a subfloor. This is going to put our flooring budget way over. (Bye bye granite countertops.)
  
  
• Our builder guys are coming over today to clean up the floor, get it wet, and seal over the asbestos glue (which of course adds more time and money to what we have to pay).
  
  
• We have to get the carpets cleaned in the whole house to get rid of all the construction dust and asbestos fiber floaties that have been tracked all over the house. (Exposure incident #2).
  
  
• We have a huge construction dumpster in our driveway and when it is time to haul it away all of the suspicious material may have to be bagged in 4mm plastic bags, sealed and taken to a special bionic-asbestos-holding cell (or whatever). This of course costs much more than just taking it to the landfill. (Don't you know how expensive those bionic-asbestos-holding cells are to maintain????? )
  
  
• Oh, and did I mention we are all gonna die because we have been living in a construction zone for the last 2 weeks with carcinogenic chrysotile asbestos fibers floating around???????

Ok, I just found this. Maybe we won't die from the floor stuff. Just the ceiling stuff.

Day 14: Drywall

BeforeAfterToday was a big drywall day. A crew came and hung the drywall this afternoon and I thought that was all the work that was going to be done today. Another crew showed up around 4:00 and did the mudding and taping. I think tomorrow there is a little more taping to do. Next is the texturing. I hope they'll start that tomorrow. Now that it has been framed it is a lot easier to see how it will look when it it done. And it is REALLY nice not having a gigantic hole in my ceiling.


The wiring is all done, they just have to install the switches and outlets. I picked out the flooring today. Things are moving along quite well. We are hoping to be done in 3 weeks or less. It is going a bit faster than expected (hooray!)

Note to Self:

When dumping the dirty dish water in the toilet remember to remove washcloth from tub before dumping. (Bye bye little washcloth I hope you don't get stuck in the pipes and cause some unfortunate toilet malfunction.) :O Good one Kent! :D

Bathing The Dishes

Yep, ya read that right. This has become part of our daily life during the remodel. I know you all shudder at the thought of mixing personal hygiene spaces with eating surfaces. In an ideal world the two never have to cross paths. Unfortunately we aren't exactly living in an ideal situation right now so we have to do our best to make sure that we don't actually touch any bathroom surfaces with the dishes. Here's what we do:

• During the day we put all the dirty dishes in the wash tub.


• After about 2 meals the tub is full so I take it and a kitchen rag and a dishtowel up to the bathroom. (Yes, our bathtub is blue. This is the next remodeling project we'll take on in a couple of years.)


• I fill up the washtub with soap and water and sit on the floor and wash the dishes.
  
  


• As I wash them I stack them in the wash tub on the left.
  
  


• Next I dump out all the nasty water with food floaties into the toilet. YUM. Seeing food particles in the toilet never ceases to remind me of other activities involving food and the toilet...


• Then I fill up the tub on the right again with water and rinse all the dishes and rinse out the left tub.


• Then I shake the excess water off the dishes, stack them back in the tub, dry off the bottom of the tubs and take the dishes back downstairs.


• I stack them in the dish drainer and there you go. Clean dishes.
  
  

(I don't want to hear ANYONE complain about unloading the dishwasher. You people are WIMPS! Try doing your dishes in the tub for a change...;)

Day 9: Electrical and Framing

Things are really moving along. Here are some pics of the day.

Tuesday morning before the workers came. See that black pipe sticking out of the floor? That's the plumbing for the new sink.

Here's the pic of the old window boarded up and a hole cut in the wall for the new window.

This is the framed pantry and the window after it was installed. Ian calls the pantry his "food elevator". Tomorrow we have more electrical and more framing. Friday the drywallers start.


We have wires sticking out of the walls and ceiling everywhere.

Update

I haven't updated much on the day to day stuff so here goes:

• Kent went to Tucson for a conference last week. He is home now (yay!). I couldn't blog about this because all the crazy weirdos out there would know that I was husbandless. Well, he's home now so don't mess with me. Having him gone during the first week of the kitchen remodel as well as the first 2 days of school was definitely a challenge.
  
  
• Adele just cut her two top front teeth. She barely has tooth nubs up there but she still manages to grind them with the bottom teeth. I don't know why all kids grind their teeth but it seems they do.
  
  
• Day 3 of the kitchen remodel was moving the plumbing from the center of the kitchen over to the far wall. I didn't take any pictures of it because it was boring just having a few pipes disappear and reappear somewhere else. It IS very exciting though because it means that I won't have a sink in the middle of my room anymore. Hooray!
  
  
• Ian has absolutely loved watching the guys work on the house. He will just sit there for hours watching those guys. Maybe I should check out some "Hometime" and "This Old House" videos from the library for him. I can barely get the kid to watch tv but maybe I have just had the wrong approach all this time.
  


• Elise's Molluscum is FINALLY getting better. She has had it since February. She had bumps ALL over her back and we were starting to think they were never going to go away. Then they got all scabby and infected and we really started to worry. I guess that is normal in the progression of the disease, and the scabbing actually means that they are getting better. She is so happy to be almost "bump free". It was a real bummer for her to have to wear a T-shirt every time she went swimming this summer.
  
  


• My brother Drew is getting married this Saturday so I am going to Portland (sans kids!) for the weekend.
  
  
• Two of our amphibian friends have completed their second estate and have moved onto Paradise. The first one (Floppy) was fatally injured in an accident involving Elise, the moving of rocks and some unintentional squashing. He (she?) died of severe blunt force trauma. The poor adolescent frog did have a proper funeral and burial courtesy of my daughters. Floppy was Elise's favorite and she was very distraught when she killed it. (Rightfully so.) The second victim was found floating in the water just a few hours ago. We are waiting for the autopsy report to reveal the cause of death. (No, we are not going to dissect it! Kidding here! Sheesh!) I am sure we will have another funeral after school tomorrow and maybe the girls will write a little epitaph for the dead froggies.
  
  
• Since my camera is broken I have finally mastered the taking-pictures-with-the-cell-phone-and-sending-them-to-my-internet-account-and-then-emailing-them-to-myself-and-then-saving-them-so-I-can-finally-use-them thing.
  
  

Day 2: More Wreckage

Look at all that space!

Day 1: Wreckage

Before

After the cupboards and appliances were removed

During the demolition of the drop-down ceiling

They had some awesome wallpaper. And 3 layers of linoleum under our laminate floor.

I Feel Like I am Moving and Dead Camera

I talked to our contractor this morning and he said we'd be starting the demolition of the kitchen tomorrow. Being unprepared for this to take place, I spent the whole entire day cleaning out my kitchen. I had to take everything off the walls, remove the curtains and of course pack up all the dishes. My kitchen and living areas look so bare. It really feels like we are moving. It is kind of weird actually. I moved everything down to our storage room and into my office. We are setting up a temporary kitchen there. Hopefully we can get the fridge down our bendy and narrow stairs. I have a waffle iron, a griddle, crock pot and I am going to borrow a hot plate from a friend. The only thing I am really lacking is a sink. I have a feeling that doing dishes in the bathtub is going to get old reaaaaally fast.

I got my camera out to take some pictures of the bare kitchen and living room. Unfortunately I think it is officially dead. I am not even getting pink and melty. Just black and liney. I was really looking forward to taking pictures of the destruction tomorrow. I guess I will just have to use my cell phone. (NO!!!!!)

Kitchen Update

We went to pick our cabinets yesterday and the cabinet guy printed out this 3D floor plan for us. Here's how the kitchen will look after (minus the blue floors and countertops of course).

It looks like we are going start around August 11ish. No final start date though. Hopefully it will be soon! We are getting really exicted!

Update

It's been awhile since I updated. So here goes:

• The kids go back to school in 2.5 weeks. They are excited, I am excited.
  
  
• We survived 2 weeks of 9 a.m. swimming lessons.
  
  
• Peanut Butter Sandwich Week ended up getting cut short because I am so nice and I had mercy on the kids. They didn't like it at all for the couple of days that we did it. There is always the threat that next time I really WILL do it for a whole week.
  
  
• The kitchen remodel hasn't started yet. The cabinet guy is pretty busy right now so we are waiting for awhile so that we will be sure the cabinets are ready when we are ready for them. We could start anytime but we'd have stop working when we got to the cabinets and wait for him. We are HOPING to start in about a week.
  
  
• Adele is 9 months old. She weighed 15 Lbs. 1 oz. at her check-up. She had actually lost a bit of weight because the week before she went to the Dr. for an ear/sinus infection and thrush. I have to take her back in a month to have her weighed again. She is crawling all over the place now and eating everything.
  
  
  
  
• I had a cooking disaster last night which involved getting 2 bowls of wheat flour mixed up. One was for my muffins and one was just some extra flour that wouldn't fit into the freezer bag. I was saving it for some rolls I was going to make for Sunday dinner. The cinnamon, sugar, baking powder and salt ended up NOT making it into the pumpkin muffins last night and lets just say they were nas-tay. The only reason they were even sort of edible was that they had chocolate chips in them. The kiddos actually LIKED the pumpkin-flavored blobs. Go figure. This morning when I was making the rolls I found it odd that they smelled like cinnamon. Then I figured it out. So, I guess we'll see how the rolls taste later huh?
  
  
• Here's my latest sewing project: Another apron. This one features one long strap that slides through some casings on the back making it very adjustable.

Kitchen Plan

Here's the old plan, turned so both are facing the same direction. And here's the new plan.

Looks like we'll be starting (hopefully) at the end of next week. The remodel should take about 2 months. (FUN!)

Kitchen Remodel

Ok, I promised that I'd blog about my kitchen remodel this week. So here it is.

First, I'd like to start with the way the kitchen looked when we were looking at the house:

No, your eyes are NOT playing tricks on you. Those ARE cows painted on the side of the cupboard by the stove.

So, here's how it looked after we took down the wall paper, painted over the cow mural and painted over the yellow sponge paint (which I must add was also in the family room and down the hallway and down the stairs.)

Another view, kind of a bad photo, but you get the idea. I wanted to post this so you could see through the doorway by the table. That's the living room. So, this is how the 3 rooms look:

As many of you know, the 70's will forever be remembered by bell bottoms, popcorn ceiling WITH asbestos (which we have all been exposed to, and now we'll have lung cancer in 40 years), and drop down ceilings in kitchens. Oh, and LSD, but I am SURE that LSD has NOTHING to do with the aforementioned things.

Why we are remodeling our kitchen:

• Our kitchen has a drop-down ceiling and it is in the middle of the room and the "work triangle" (fridge, stove, sink) is the highest traffic area in the kitchen.
  


• The countertops we have now are literally falling apart and we frequently snag our clothing on them. (I ruined a brand new shirt the other day.)
  
  


• The cupboards are 30 years old and they have been painted way too many times. The paint dents when they get banged.
  
  


(My camera is doing the psycho "melty baby thing again")



• The sink area is beyond nasty. The people who lived here before us got countertops and must have done a lot of the work themselves because they cut the hole too big for the sink and instead of getting a new piece of countertop and doing it right, they just put tile around the sink. Easy solution right? Well, the tile is cracked in several places and I swear there are 100 nasty diseases living under that tile. We have recaulked it several times and it just gets gross so fast. Wanna see???
  
  I shudder. I am sure you do too.

So, basically because everything is falling apart we decided to remodel. And since we were going to be getting new counters and cupboards we decided to also change the floor plan so we would not have the kitchen in the middle of the room. So, next week, the demolition guys are coming in and they are going to tear down that drop-down ceiling and rip out the wall that separates the living room and the kitchen. They are going to move the kitchen to where the family room is and make it one big great room. I have a picture of the new layout but I have to scan it before I can post it. That'll give you a reason to come back to my blog tomorrow huh?