This is a spoily kitchen post.

The kitchen is SO CLOSE TO DONE! It's amazing how quickly they've done the job. We have nothing but good things to say about our contractor and crew...it's been such a good experience. They're original predicted date of completion was February 7, but now he's saying that if weather cooperates this week, it should be done by the end of this week! I'm dreaming up what our first meal will be this coming weekend :) Probably something along the lines of good ole BBQ meatballs and mashed potatoes. Mmmmm.

So this is a spoiler blog. I considered only posting detail shots so that the "big reveal" would remain a complete surprise, but then I thought if I were you, I'd be mad at me, because that's annoying. So, I'll leave it up to you whether you want to see the pictures of what it's most going to look like when completed. The next post will probably be the final product and I'll post before and afters so we can all ooooh and aaaaah. With that said, I'll get on with it and just put a spoiler alert where you should stop reading if you want to be surprised next week.

Insulation and cut out new window:

Bye, Bye other window.

Drywall! So fresh and so clean!

Then we escaped to Alabama for the weekend because Caleb realized he had the weekend off. We went to visit our friends Ben and Jolynn and they showed us such a good time. We went to Pie Lab in a neighboring small town to Tuscaloosa. It's a community center type place where they serve pie and coffee, and if you get there early enough, food. I'm assuming they have some full-time employees but volunteers help run the show by volunteering to serve and prepare the food. Convicts on good behavior sometimes serve at Pie Lab and Ben and Jolynn said they were some of the friendliest volunteers to encounter. The inside was SO cool.

We drank coffee there and played Ticket to Ride.

Ben and Jolynn's place is so cute and I'm probably going to steal this idea:

We got a lot of much needed rest and distraction:

So did Chloe.

She got A LOT of sleep.

And she made a new best friend in Rolfe, their cute little dachshund.

Then we returned.

Paint on the walls...though it's hard to tell in this picture.

They covered over the ceiling instead of patching the holes and the huge gaping hole where the fireplace was.

Which was here:

Ok, this is where it starts to get spoily. So if you don't want to see, it's on you :)

TA-DA! Cabinets! Floors! So beautiful!

We're still without electricity in the house except for one part of the living room and select outlets throughout the house...we'll be glad to be able to turn the bathroom light on again. So at this point, the only way to see the kitchen was with these shop lights.

This is the point I realized how massively grateful I was to not be installing the cabinets ourselves:

This is a REALLY spoily part.

WINDOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Upper cabinets!!!!! And partial countertops!!!!!!!

Patching holes and finishing painting next week:

Countertops. This one will house the sink. He'll be cutting the granite in our backyard this week as long as it's semi-warm for him to do the job. The granite is covered in water constantly while it's being cut, so 30 degree days wouldn't be all that fun. Nor would 50 degrees as it's going to be, but he's a man's man.

Cabinets surrounding the fridge.

Caleb and I can't stop staring at it. It's kind of getting to the point where we may have lost our minds. We'll be staring at it for long amounts of time without saying anything and then we'll both snap out of it and wonder what we're doing. It's been such a treat to come home from work each day with the progress being so exponentially huge each day. Can't wait to share the next post with you when it's ALL FINISHED!!

DEMOLISHED!

Demolition came and went. The first crack at it. So satisfying. Removing the tile from the countertops was a messy job. There's a thick layer of cement underneath the tile that you have to smash into pieces to get it apart.

So, Caleb was actually the one to remove the sink, but he asked if I wanted to take a picture with the freshly retired beast. Uh, yes. Caleb also saw as we were throwing it into the dumpster a date printed on the sink which said 1957. Also, so that I'm not flooded with emails asking how you too can look this good, I'll let you in on my secret. Home Depot has these amazing glasses. They flatter everyone. You're welcome.

Where the sink once lay.

Removing the tile from the walls was not nearly as challenging as removing them from the counter tops. Except for the wall behind the sink. That was a piece of work.

I didn't take any pictures during the removal of the chimney. A couple friends came over in exchange for pizza and helped us remove the chimney. I think we got the better end of that deal. While two of us were still chipping away at the plaster walls, the other two were removing the chimney. Two of the dustiest, dirtiest jobs. It was quite disorienting and Caleb and I both said later that we both sort of lost our minds during that time because of the dust covering our glasses and coating our noses and throats. It felt like another dimension. We were glad to get outside and breathe fresh air.

Some plaster.

This was taken after we removed most of the plaster.

And here we removed the lathe beneath it. Also, an homage to that window. It will not be with us much longer.

Caleb removing the laminate flooring. This was MUCH easier than our previous experience with removing laminate from the rest of the house.

Caleb installing a little home security. After we removed the door trim, we saw that the frame had rotted itself out and our deadbolt no longer served any purpose. We now have a piece of wood screwed over the deadbolt in the frame.

This is to document the doorway to the rest of the house. I believe as of TOMORROW when renovation begins, this doorway will be growing in size.

Just a picture of Chloe being awkward and confused.

Kitchen in a box! We were a little nervous about fitting everything in. This was taken a day before we were finished with it. On top of what you see here, we mounded all of the broken bricks from the chimney on top. By the end, we were trying to find nooks and crannies everywhere to shove more bricks into so that when they picked up the dumpster, they all wouldn't fall out into our driveway. We fit everything and when we came home from work that day, the dumpster was gone and nothing was left behind!

And Chloe.

Yesterday we celebrated being done with our share of the work by spending some of the January day in the park.

Tomorrow the contractor comes! It will be fun to see the progress each day when we come home from our jobs!