Neat Blog Post

I'm all clevered out from the Factory today, so 'Neat Blog Post' is what you get for a title. I have no more clevers today to give. By the way, you'll have to click on some of the pictures to see the whole thing...I'm too lazy right now to figure out how to make the whole image appear....so just click on it :) (all clevered out).

Thought I'd do a quick update. I was sending pictures of our kitchen to our contractor so he could have them for his portfolio, and so I thought I'd update the blog with a couple pictures of it as it looks today. I found those letters at the Nashville Flea Market. Each one is handmade and they are composed of different metal ceiling tiles. I also got a wooden Coca Cola crate that holds our spices.

Picture of Chloe. Duh.

This happened at Kroger one night.

I used my kitchen. I know you're impressed.

We painted most of our baseboards.

We went to Kansas.

And saw these two.

And saw my sister get married. And cried. A lot.

Also, we now have somewhat of a pool in our backyard. Up until a couple months ago, it was a thing in our backyard filled with dirt, glass and bricks. Said thing was hard to mow, although, I never mow (thank you, caleb...I looooove you) :) We thought it was a shallow flower bed gone awry (the picture below is from 2010, but you can see how it's really hidden). Caleb and his dad had worked on it last time the Dirks' visited and got it started, but then Caleb's friend Dan became the real driving force behind making Thing become Pool. 

This picture is of them after they finally had it cleaned out and were testing it to see if it retained water. So naturally, this required sitting in it. It was April 1st and it was cold.

You can kind of see it, but neither of them want to fully sit down in the water.

Working at night.

Laying brick.

Caleb painted the concrete with pool paint which serves multiple purposes. It was supposed to stay dry for two weeks. It rained a few times and despite Dan and Caleb's tent set-up to deflect rain and tree-age (tree stuff that falls...it's a technical term) which kept a lot out, it still had to be vacuumed out with the shop vac. Then we said, 1 week, 4 days? Good 'nuff.

As I write this post, Dan and Caleb are working on the pool/spa/hot tub/redneck-waterhole/neighbor-kids-new-thing-to-throw-cats-into. They are planning to lay more brick to form a patio around the front end of it. They're installing a filter so that the water stays clean and they're working on a ingenious way to heat it. I'll post more pictures when that time comes. So y'all just git yer swimmin' clothes and hop on over nah ya hear? (that's what I'll say in case we end up calling it our redneck waterhole).

Can't. Believe. It's done. And can't. Believe. How nice. It is.

Well. I kind of didn't actually believe I'd ever be able to say this (dramatic?), but THE KITCHEN IS DONE. Everything is put away, we've been cooking for about two weeks now and we couldn't be happier with it. Sometimes is just doesn't seem real. I just finished the curtains the other day, so that was my requirement for myself in order to put pictures up. I haven't finished the curtain for the door. But who cares. You don't. Also, I know I said I'd do before and after pictures, but I'm too tired to do that. So here's one and for the rest, go here. :) Now we're all happy.

The view from the front door.

Pit stop. See our hanging light, resurrected from our last house? Don't care? Didn't think so. Moving on.

Ok, for real now. Here's our kitchen. We L.O.V.E. it. I can't even begin to put into words how excited we are about it. So with that in mind, I'm not going to narrate the rest. I just want to say TA-DAAAAAAAAAAAA! and let you look.

TA-DAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Y'all come visit nah, ya hear?

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!!