Almost There!!!

If I thought last Thursday was productive, then Friday was the epitome of productivity! By the end of the day on Friday, we had a fully functioning kitchen. That is, if you don't mind making dinner on a dusty countertop whilst standing on subfloor, and possibly having "loose screws" on the menu. But honestly, here's what Mike and his team accomplished:

-Painters were there working on some trim and other paintables.

-The ovens were set in place and hooked up.

We bought one oven with convection and one without. We put the one with convection on the right, as I anticipate using that one more frequently. The factory recommendations say to run a sort of cleaning cycle to burn off any coating from the interior that ought not be in food before you really cook anything in there. Put that on the to-do list! When I bought the ovens at Bob Wallace, the salesperson let me know he thought the heavy duty roll out rack only came with the convection model. 

Imagine my surprise and delight to know they sent one with the non-covection as well! Sweet! Now I can make two exceptionally physically heavy meals, one in each oven, and have a roll out tray to make their retrieval go more smoothly. (Those roll out racks can run you about $100 a piece, and I'd already thought I'd buy a second one if we only received one, so this really was a treat.)

-The electricians put all the can lights on dimmers, changed out the old beige/yellowed outlets to white outlets, hung the chandelier in the dining room, and got our pendant lights up.

And I *finally* ordered Edison style bulbs from Restoration Hardware for the pendants.

It took a while to decide, since I wanted the Edison bulbs (because of aesthetics as the pendants have see-right-through-'em glass) but Ryan wanted LEDs (because of longevity and energy efficiency). I searched high and low and could not find a marriage between the two, as the very nature of each style of bulb inhibits cross-breeding. I'd compare it to the idea of a lion mating with a Shetland pony. It wouldn't happen naturally, and if it ever, by some crazy genetically modified off chance did happen, the result would be more than strange.

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Awww, come on bear! Give it a chance!

-Mike and a couple of the other guys got the fridge moved from the garage to it's new home in the kitchen. I must say, this was a bit traumatic. Remember, we have a steep driveway... And they had to go about halfway up said driveway before making it onto the sidewalk up to the front door. Well, when rounding the corner onto the sidewalk, I saw impact. Refrigerator vs. retaining wall. And of course it was the FRONT of the fridge, and not the back. I imagined it had scraped right in the center of the freezer and "flex-zone" drawers. *Deep, cleansing breath* Now walk away, and don't watch anymore.

Ok, I couldn't help myself, I went upstairs to see them bring it in. But it was another 30 minutes before that happened, as they needed to completely remove our front door AND the fridge's doors (which encompassed unhooking what looked to be vital wires for proper functioning). I'm getting really nervous...not good to watch this go down. I suspect it might be similar to a mother watching her child have surgery. And before the actual mothers say, "uh, no, completely different," understand that this fridge is my brand, spankin' new baby.  After getting inside, I see that it's just a small corner scratch. 

I try to tell myself, "no biggie, it's small, negligible really;" but what I actually say to Mike is "we didn't buy this fridge at a scratch and dent sale, so I don't want it to look like we did-do whatever you need to do to fix it." Mike says he will fix it. We leave the fridge plugged in to start cooling off, and so we can check the water lines. I leave to go and get a minimal, but better than nothing, 3 hour nap at the in-law's house before work. When I get back to the house to get ready for work, Ryan and I see that the fridge is reading 67 degrees (it's supposed to be more like 37 degrees...). This doesn't seem right *another deep, cleansing breath* but let's just give it some more time. Off to work, and let's just hope it corrects itself overnight.

With all these deep, cleansing breaths this ought to be one of my most well oxygenated days. Good thing, as they'll be doing the spray lacquer on the built-in pantry on Monday, and my understanding of that is to expect a full alveolar collapse because of the fumes.