"Holy progress, Batman!"

Thursday was chock full of accomplishments.

Painters showed up at 7am to finish smoothing the walls, doing some priming, and filling in the trim. Construction guys were there, too, finishing out the column, adding the wood topper to the half wall, and getting the appliance pantry framed out.

Around 9am comes my favorite part!!! Our counters have arrived! It was raining and we have that demon slope in our driveway. The slowly got their truck down the driveway and used it as the homebase for moving the slabs and fine tuning them in certain areas.

After much tugging, pulling, lifting, and adjusting they got our beautiful counters in place.

Aren't they wonderful!

After talking with several granite people, then with Ceramic Harmony who did our countertops, these "Brown Fantasy" countertops are sometimes classified as quartzite, sometimes granite, other times marble. Ceramic Harmony acquired our slabs from Stone Connection in Atlanta, who calls their slabs "Onice Fantasy" and classifies the stone as a marble, though when acid and etch-tested it performs with more integrity than your typical marble surface. Sweet! One of the first things I wanted to make was homemade lemon bars, and lemon tears up marble. I should be safe....right? We'll find out...

The plumber is expected Friday, getting the faucet, disposal, and pot filler hooked up. Our pot filler could double as a weapon...or as a dousing mechanism for any misbehavers sitting on the couch on the other side of the wall. And electricians are set to come Friday as well, to get our pendant lights, dining room chandelier, and living room fan up and running.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Erin go bragh, folks! Ryan and I had a fun night celebrating the wearing o' the green tonight at a local brewery's open house. Rocket Republic makes a mean Brown Ale washed over peanut butter chips-get you some!

For anyone that isn't on Facebook, or missed this, here is how The Girls celebrated ol' St. Pat's:

On the remodel side of things, Mike and I were able to meet on Monday and get an idea of this week's goals. Mike said that he had hoped the painting would have been completed last week, but since the drywall sequence was taking longer than originally expected, he hoped painting would be completed by this week. After more drywall sanding, scraping, and filling in on Monday and Tuesday, I hope he's right. Though I still am uncertain that painting will happen until next week. We do, however, have the sideboard's upper cabinets mounted. We'll just need to get glass put in.

Here's Ryan, being elusive on camera:

If you were standing at our fridge, and looking across, this is the view:

And here is how things look from the front door:

Mike said the countertops should be installed late Thursday, or Friday. And then the plumber can come Monday to get fixtures in place. We'll be putting in appliances before you know it! Once Mike gets the sideboard's base cabinets fine tuned we'll be able to work on the butcher block counter top that we have waiting to go there.

This week's productivity goals: something, anything...if I can get more than 2 hour naps here and there. If I don't get more sleep, I'll be doing a whole lotta nuthin'. And that's okay. 

"The time has come," the Walrus said, "to talk of many things..."

Namely, just how long the drywall process takes. So the drywall guys show up Tuesday, get sheets of drywall in place and put the paste on there.  *24 hours later* Do a little scraping and sanding, and repeat paste application. *Another 24 hours later* Come and put some blue goo on top of the two layers of white goo, and now let that dry. It's now Thursday, and I'm wondering if a second layer of blue paste is in store for tomorrow.

What that picture can't tell you is the how strong the fumes are coming off that stuff. I just pop up to take a picture or walk through to the bedroom and my eyes start burning. Like, instead of a cucumber eye mask, put cut onions on your face burning. I have not once seen any of the guys working on this wearing masks or glasses. Maybe they build up immunity to it, like the folks that work in nail salons?

In an effort to avoid the toxic fumes, I did some running around today.

-Gas tank filled, check!

-Explore glass options, check! (Though "explore" is a bit of an exaggeration...I went to ONE store and asked them for one particular type of glass that I know I want-"seedy.")

-Got oil changed (for the first time in a number of months I'm embarrassed to share), check!

When I get back home, there's no one working. But "The Girls" greet me at the door. One of them scratches her ear, then the other one scratches her ear. *Commence with application of  flea/tick prevention liquid*

After feeling quite sure that the cats are tucked away, hiding and hating me, I call the Home Depot parts department to check on that dishwasher door again. A very kind Karen informs me that it was delivered today. I go to the front door, and sure enough, there it is. Thanks Karen. I am either incapable of checking on things before calling, or I had very little faith that it would be up there in the first place. (Or maybe it's both?) Either way, it's here!

Why, oh why, does it have a scuff on it??? There, underneath the handle groove. (It's hard to see in this picture.) Yes, the bag it was wrapped in left a pattern, but that should come off when I clean it. That scuff that looks like someone grazed it with a Brillo pad; that won't come off with Windex. Meh. Not worth it to replace it.

Here's the old dishwasher:

Here's Ryan working on getting the new panel on:

And voila! Now we have a stainless steel dishwasher!

And just a little FYI, in particular why I choose not to take on the battle to replace the scuffed panel: 
1. We don't even use dishwashers that much. This thing just needs to sit in it's place and be stainless, and wait for us to use it. 
2. This door panel was just over $100. New stainless steel dishwashers START around $500, but getting one that has good reviews on Consumer Reports is going to put you out $800 easy. After reading #1 above, you do the math. 
3. If progress goes well, I'd like to think we're getting appliances into place next week, and seeing as how the delivery schedule of the first panel was way off, I can only imagine it would be the first of May before a replacement would show up. Again, not worth it.


Just going to bring it full circle and leave you with:

"Of shoes, and ships, and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings." -Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (The innuendo here is that sometimes there is chaos in the normal. Just enjoy the ride.)

Bits n Pieces

Please excuse me, as I've only had a little bit of sleep and my thoughts feel like fragmented spiraling pieces...

I can say, despite the fact that Mike (the contractor) is out of town, his very capable main-man, Wayne, is around this week taking care of this and that. Yesterday (Monday), Wayne's brother was here finishing the painting on the trim and doors. Today, there are a few guys here putting up drywall. It's so very refreshing to not see insulation dangling from the ceiling. Just looking at it before was enough to give me a bronchospasm.

Ahhhh, that's better. 

The only holes left in the ceiling are the ones for lights! This entire week has and will be unseasonably rainy and humid, and the first bit of spackling goo has to dry before they can come back with the second layer. Fingers crossed that they're here Wednesday, and able to finish up. And then clean up... I'm near my breaking point with tumbling balls of insulation and dust particles. 

Here's one of the 3M dust catching mats with little piles of debris:

And here's a pile of pieces of everything that Ryan rounded up:

I think he could see that I was freaking out about all the spackling goo going where it oughtn't, and figured he'd clean up what he could. 

Ugggghhhh, whatever. They'll be back tomorrow slinging more of that crap around. I'll be downstairs, drinking some wine, pretending everything is pristine until Mike comes back and cleans it up.

Meanwhile, before I popped the cork:

-I called to see where the hell our new dishwasher panel was. It was supposed to arrive by March 6th at the latest, and we've yet to see it. The lady with Home Depot hasn't seen it either; in fact, they don't even know when they're going to get it. Fan-freaking-tastic. "Call back in a couple days and we'll see if it's on the truck." Yeah, sure thing, Janice, thanks for all your help.

-Washed sheets, bought shampoo, and removed toe nail polish (hey, every little thing counts!).

-Picked up our pot filler! It's beautiful! And heavy! And I love it!

-What else do I love??? Our countertops! I went to Ceramic Harmony today, and they had all the slabs laid out so I could tell them which bits to use where.

The top part is the sink cut out, and the bottom is for the non-bar peninsula:

This is the bar peninsula, with the proposed paint color and backsplash (lighter gray tile on the left):

And here's the center piece where the cooktop cut out will go:

BrOwN FaNtAsY, y'all! And we ended up needing all three slabs...hopefully they'll work something out so we don't get charged too much extra. Eeeeek!

Other Tuesday successes include a yoga class and celebrating one of our charge nurse's 40-year work anniversary. Congratulations Mary Ella! We love you...and you can never leave.

Tomorrow's goals include sleep and maybe another yoga class. Anything above and beyond that will be considered extraordinary, and will be rewarded with cookies.

Primed 'n' Cookin'

Tuesday I met my goals of looking at hardwood samples, and Bob Wallace appliance called to set up delivery. Oven and cooktop should be arriving Wednesday, assuming we don't have  a run of bad weather (a local weatherman has said a tornado could be possible...). And for heaven's sake if I stay cooped up in this house because of the weather again, I'll need to remind myself:

The plumbing inspector came by on Tuesday, as well. And we passed! 2 down, 1 to go. The structural inspection has been "called in" so hopefully that person makes it by this week. Fingers crossed!!

There were a couple guys at the house today getting the windows and doors primed, and even though it's hard to see in the picture, I promise you, it's already fresher and cleaner looking. While stained wood certainly has it's place and can be beautiful, it just didn't "go" with what we are wanting. Bring on the clean, crispness of WHITE!!

Wednesday

We had the structural inspector come by in the morning. She said that Mike needed to add some extra support in a couple spots, so "failed" us the first time. (And just so you have an idea of what who we were working with: imagine your female Middle School gym teacher mashed up with a park ranger. Now put her panties in a wad and give her these intimidating official pieces of red paper. A woman on a power trip if I've ever seen one. She walked through our house like Dog the Bounty Hunter seeking his next fugitive.)

While waiting on The Khaki commander to return, Bob Wallace called to say they were going to be bringing the ovens and cooktop. Yeah! "We're coming in a box truck." That could be a problem...

Yup, that's vital and likely flammable truck parts knocking into pavement. They retreat, and state they'll be back with a pick up. (I did forewarn them about how steep our driveway is.)

Mike and Wayne got all the extra framing where it needed to be with a quickness, and when she came back a few hours later she gave us the all clear.  Success! All three inspections are now knocked out.

Then Bob Wallace came back with our cooking equipment. Another success!

Mike and Wayne cleaned up a bit and roughly laid out the cabinets. 

The 4 cabinet doors in the center of the picture will come off those cabinet bases, and the ovens will go there. Sink to the right, under the window. And the cooktop will be directly under the gaping hole in the ceiling. The back of the cabinets that you see will be counter-height bar seating. 

Things can really move forward now...if it wasn't for this ice storm that's on it's way. You heard me right, it's time for our weekly weather event that shuts down the entire city. You're asking yourself: ice, really? That guy in front of the box truck has on a t-shirt. Good observation. Wednesday at 4:20 PM it was 76 degrees. And at 5:30 PM it dropped to 59 and was drizzling. Here we go again; cue the work to stop. 

Sheesh...let's hope that ice gets cleared out so they can finalize cabinets on Friday. Then we can template the counters on Monday!

Calling All Inspectors!

When our contractor said, "start to finish will be anywhere between 7-10 weeks. We normally just end up waiting on inspections," he wasn't kidding. We thought we'd get all three inspections (electrical, plumbing, and structural) knocked out last week. The snow put a halt on that, so we hope everyone gets by this week. Monday has us off to a good start: the electrical inspector came by and gave us the all clear electrically! 1 down, 2 to go... 

Since several workers lost hours last week, they were doing odds and ends this past Saturday to make up for it. That means we got our cabinets dropped off! They came back today and took them out of their boxes and set them out. They're looking good!

I didn't want blind-corner base cabinets. They have a lot of space that goes unused, or you have to choose from various attachments and modifications to make them useful. I had wanted to do corner drawers, that would hold gadgets, potholders, etc. Alas, the cabinet company we used does not offer corner drawer bases. We ended up with blind corner bases, and while they look good just sitting there I'm left with the conundrum of making them a functional part of the kitchen. I really liked this idea:

And even though those pullouts are relatively expensive, the cost could be overlooked when up against improved function. It would certainly avoid the awkward digging through cabinets and removing things you don't need just to get to what you're looking for.

But it couldn't be that easy... Oh no, something had to go wrong here. All those cabinet pullouts require at least a 15 inch door opening; ours are 11.75 inches. Dammit, now what.
When we ordered the cabinets we planned to add the pullouts later on (the cost, remember), so I really hadn't researched them closely enough to realize that I needed to order corner base cabinets with door openings that would accommodate the pullouts. The creative center of my brain is busy trying to fix this, but I feel like this:

I'll talk with Mike and see if any of my ideas are even feasible. Moral of the story: plan ahead. Completely. With everything!!

On a brighter note, Monday's success stories include: getting off work on time!

Going to Home Depot to pick up Minwax wood stains to put on flooring samples. 

Heading to Park Supply and making a final decision on a faucet and a pot filler-finally! Meet our newest fixtures:

Delta Leland faucet in Arctic Stainless

(I had originally wanted to avoid the pull-down style faucet because I felt this introduced just one more component that could break resulting in needing to buy a whole new faucet. I have since reasoned that having a single item by the sink to clean around is preferable to several fixture bases. And everyone says they love their pull-down faucets. And Delta has a lifetime warranty that should quell my mechanical failure concerns.)

Brizo Traditional deck-mount pot filler in Stainless

Taking faucet by Ceramic Harmony so they'd have it's exact dimensions on hand come templating time. Then I snuck another peek at our slabs!

Tuesday's goals: get by flooring store to look at their colors and plank sizes, call and see if ovens and cooktop are on their way.