So, I haven't updated in a while, but here's the pictures of the work Marshall did last week. The dining room was painted red, and it looks great!

The second picture is the view of the door to the office taken from the living room. Mark has even painted the doors so the old and yellowing frames in the door windows match the new color on the ceiling and trim.


Marshall put the pantry door back on the trim around the door frame. He finished the shelves, but they weren't all in at this point because he was still working on the tile in the floor.

The tile for the closet was a little tricky. Of course, the tile like the rest of the kitchen is nowhere to be found. We had some extra tile left from when the previous owners first installed it, so we were able to save a LOT of money by using that to fill in the whole left when we took out the L in the counter. Unfortunately, there was not enough left to tile the pantry. We found something with a similar pattern, but it was a 14 X 14 tile rather than a 12 X 12, and its a bit darker than what's in the kitchen. It's close enough for the pantry floor, though.

Day 21 - It's all coming together!

There hasn't been a lot of really noticeable progress over the past couple of days, but today the changes are much more visible. The kitchen is now functional and is lacking just a few small details. This first picture is of the sink side (duh!) taken from the hall way. The tile back splash is now completely finished. The only thing visibly unfinished here is the crown molding on top of the cabinets and the task lighting underneath. (If you look closely you can see the wires for the task lights hanging down just above the paper towels.)
This second picture is of the sink side of the kitchen from the hallway. Marshall got the stove installed today, so now I can actually cook in my kitchen. Well, maybe not right now, but I can cook after I move everything back into the kitchen. The cabinet over the kitchen is back in...for good, and the tile behind the stove is finished.
This next picture is of the pantry. The shelves are now in. The door is painted but not ready to hang yet, and we've got to pick out some tile to go in the floor. But it will soon be ready to stock up!
The last picture here is Mark's contribution to the remodel. He painted the doors leading from the dining room into the office white so they will match the white in the dining room and kitchen. The frames holding the glass were quite old and had faded to a nice yellow color, so they were in need of a fresh coat (or 3) of paint.

Day 18 - Tile

Yesterday Marshall put in the tile for the back splashes behind the stove and the sink. This first picture is of the area behind the stove...or, more accurately, where the stove will be. It looks a little funny with the one beige row, but when the stove is in place, that row will be centered between the top of the stove and the bottom of the micro hood.
The tile behind the sink turned out really well, too. I wasn't sure how this was going to look, but I know after I have to wipe it down a few times I'm going to be SOOOoooo glad we went ahead and put the tile in.

Marshall took the stove out of the box yesterday (to measure the height before he started tiling, I'm sure), so we got our first good look at it. Now I'm really excited about getting to try it out! As you can tell from the picture it's a double oven. Now the garlic bread can come out of the oven at the same time as the lasagna! It's also a convection oven, so the lasagna can come out of the oven even faster...mmmm, now I'm hungry!



The middle area on the back row is a warming area, and the big burner on the front has a knob you can adjust to have it heat for either a 6", 9", or 12" pan.

Day 17 - Let there be (more) light

Today the electrician came to connect all the outlets, so we now have power in the kitchen. Marshall also completed the recessed lighting in the kitchen, including the light over the kitchen sink that is on its own dimmer switch. In this first picture, you can see the outlets and light switches that have been installed. The light here is slightly dimmed.

He also installed the micro hood, the counter tops, and the task lighting on the stove side of the kitchen. This first picture is the stove side of the kitchen with only the task lights and the light on the micro hood turned on.

This next picture is the micro hood in the light, since it doesn't show up well in the dark picture. We can now heat up the cold stuff in our kitchen! No more making dinner in the guest room...it's kind of felt like we were living in a dorm for the past couple of weeks.

This next picture is our new pantry door. This looks soooo much better than the old pantry set up. It doesn't have shelves yet, so it's not quite ready for food. But we do have light in there now.

Day 16 - I'm starting to see red!

Yesterday Marshall painted most of the kitchen, and it is lookin' good! What a difference a day makes, right. It looks so much better. You can see in this first picture that he also put in the sink and faucet in. Now it's starting to look like a kitchen.
Marshall is hoping to have it functioning like a kitchen by the end of this week...just in time for us to leave town.

Showing a bit of color

Today Marshall started painting. Well, actually he was priming today, but nonetheless, our kitchen walls are no longer naked.

The walls are primed in a gray color, so everywhere in the pictures that appears gray now should be red tomorrow. The white area in this first picture is where we will have a tiled back splash behind the stove.

The ceiling is primed with white, and they will be still be white tomorrow...just not primer white.
You can see the white ceiling in this second picture. The white area under the window ledge is where the tile back spash behind the sink will be.

Our range came in today, and boy is it cool! The main burner on the top can be adjusted for a 6, 9, or 12 inch pan, and it has a double oven. I'm pretty excited about seeing that in and functional!

Texture

At the end of last week, Marshall worked on covering and taping everything in the kitchen to begin spraying texture. By looking at the overall level of messiness, it kind of looks like we are moving backwards, but the kitchen really is looking much better. All the brown places and joint compound on the walls are now covered by texture. We were hoping to have the sink in place already, but the old sink won't fit on the new counter top. We bought a new sink this weekend, so hopefully that will be rectified soon. Next step...priming and painting!

Today Marshall finished installing the rest of the cabinets and put the doors on all of them. This first picture is of the sink side of the kitchen, taken from the dining room. I know...there's not a sink there...give it time. I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but the box under the window is our new faucet.

Here's a better picture of the new faucet. It's sitting right where the sink will go in. Good place for a faucet, huh!
The last picture is of the cabinets on the stove side of the kitchen. With all the cabinets in now, you can see where the range, microhood, and refrigerator belong. The fat, four-legged furball in front of the cabinets is Etc. She's a little miffed because she's been locked in the office all day while Marshall is working. Don't feel sorry for her...Marshall would have to spend half his time chasing her as she ran outside every time he opened the door, and the other half of his time would be spent cleaning up everything she spilled by head-butting it. She only thinks she's being tortured...she's really quite the pill!

Day - 11 It's starting to look like a kitchen!

Today Marshall got all but one set of the upper cabinets hung and started putting in the lower cabinets. Right before he left for the day, we carried in the longer counter top, so now it REALLY looks like kitchen cabinets. I made my dinner on it...well, after I heated everything in the microwave in the makeshift kitchen/guest bedroom, and the first thing Mark did when he came home was throw his bags where the kitchen sink will be cut out soon. They are still sitting there now. Needless to say, we are very excited about having a kitchen counter again.

This first picture is taken from the hallway looking into the kitchen. The kitchen sink will be cut out right below the window. If you look closely at the floor, you can see where the tile is out. That is where the cabinets used to make an L. (See previous entries for the before pictures...and marvel at how much bigger my kitchen looks.)


Here's the view of the same cabinets from the dining room looking back toward the hallway. You can see where Marshall has started bringing in the lower cabinets on the other side of the kitchen, too.
Here's another picture of the refrigerator/stove side of the kitchen from the other side of the dining room. You can see the cabinets a little better here. The range will go in next to the cabinet in the picture, and a set of drawers and a narrow cabinet will set in between the range and the refrigerator.

Now that the cabinets are almost completely in, I'm getting excited about seeing red paint on the walls!

Days 8-9

So I'm a little slow getting things updated for the end of last week...sorry about that! Busy week...(Don't delete me from your blog list, yet, Jason)

Thursday Marshall worked on mudding the sheet rock...a tedious job that doesn't make for very exciting pictures. The good news is we no longer have a random square hole in the middle of our kitchen ceiling.

Friday was a much more exciting day! First, Marshall picked up our counter top and micro hood, so now everything except the range is at our house. The picture below isn't great, but it gives you a little idea of what the counter top looks like. The official color name is Natural Roca, if that tells you anything.

The most noticeable change in the kitchen is the addition of cabinets! That's right...we now have some cabinets hanging in our kitchen. They're not all in yet, but it's starting to look at little more like an actual kitchen. The first picture is taken from the dining room looking back into the kitchen toward where the stove and cook top used to be. The new micro hood will go in under the middle cabinet. One more set of cabinets-the cabinet over the fridge-will go in on this wall.

The other picture is taken from the dining room near the office door looking back toward the sink area. Two more sets of cabinets will go in on the left--just outside the frame of the picture.

Day 7 - First Inspection

Everything went well today when the inspector came out, so Marshall started putting the lower level of sheet rock up, and started taping and mudding the sheet rock. There's not a whole lot to see, but here's a couple of pictures with the sheet rock up, and you can see where he's started mudding.

Day 6 - The cabinets arrive

Yesterday I didn't get the blog updated because I went to Bryan to watch the Robinson high school boys' soccer team in the playoffs for the first time ever...and then ended up sitting in the rain for quite a while. YUCK! To make a short story long, I didn't get home until after midnight and didn't feel like taking the time to upload pictures. Having said that...

Marshall finished out the pantry, completing the wall and hanging the sheet rock, so now we've got at least a bit of a road block between where Trenton hangs out and the food! As you can see in the picture, we're already making use of the storage space. Marshall also got sheet rock put up where the divider came out between the kitchen and dining room.

The most exciting news is that our cabinets came in today. We how have about 15 large boxes in our garage. We can't really get into them yet to see how they look, but hopefully by the end of this week we'll start seeing them in our kitchen!

Day 5 - Let there be light!

Today the electrician came to take care of all the wiring. As you can see from the picture at left, we now have kitchen lights. This was taken from the dining room looking into the kitchen.

They also got all the receptacles in place for the new outlets and light switches in the kitchen. This picture is the range/refrigerator side of the kitchen.

Marshall got started on some construction today, too! That's right...no more demolition! He closed the hole in the ceiling left from tearing out the divider for the dropped ceiling and even started working on putting the back wall into the pantry. While Trenton will mourn the loss of his direct access to the refrigerator, Mark and I will not have to worry so much about having food to eat for the rest of the month! The last picture shows the inside of the closet where you can see some of the framing going in.

The best news is that our cabinets are now in the state of Texas and should be in our garage some time tomorrow!

Day 4 - The Ceiling

Marshall wasn't scheduled to come today, so we have no significant changes in the overall appearance of the kitchen, but Mark put in a lot of time working on the dining room ceiling. He spent most of the morining (and a good portion of the afternoon) scraping the popcorn texture from the ceiling, which in and of itself doesn't sound even remotely fun. The task was made even more difficult by the steep angle of our dining room ceiling, as you can see from the first picture here.

The second picture is taken from the kitchen looking up to the dining room ceiling. After all his hard work, we now have a popcorn-free dining room that will be ready for texture whenever Marshall textures the kitchen.

Day 3

No new demolition today! It was a short day for Marshall, so there's not a lot of obvious change in the kitchen unless you look up. All the old flourescent lighting is down. In the picture, you can see the white rectangles on the ceiling where the lights used to be. Instead we are installing recessed lighting. The four circles you see are the new light fixtures. There will be one more in the area to the upper right corner of the picture that hasn't been installed, yet. The electrician doesn't come until Monday, so right now we're a little in the dark. :) I guess that doesnt' really matter when there's nothing we can do in the kitchen anyway.

Demolition - Day 2

On Day 2 of demolition, our kitchen got even bigger! Who knew? Marshall took out the section between the kitchen and dining room that once held our dropped ceiling in place today. While you can't tell as well from this first picture, that really opened up the room. You can see how much space that section took up in the picture below.


As you can also see, all of the cabinets are now out of the kitchen, and the oven and cooktop are gone. He's taken out everything ... including the kitchen sink! HAHahaha .... The bottom half of the sheet rock is out(Thanks, Lara Jane! Trenton was quite impressed that you did that!) and we are ready for the electrician to come in Monday to do all the rewiring needed to install the new appliances, lights, outlets, etc. The picture below is the view from the dining room back toward the kitchen showing where the oven and cooktop used to be.


Marshall also took out the pantry cabinets and the back wall of the pantry today. Trenton was less than thrilled with the idea of losing part of his closet and letting the cats have free reign in his room until the new wall is built back, but he's taking it as well as any 15 year old boy would. At least he doesn't have to worry about his house cleaning chores this week! Below is the view from inside Trenton's closet looking through the old pantry into the dining room.




Trenton has discovered one advantage to this new arrangement, though. He's loving the direct access to the refrigerator from his bedroom. This afternoon he asked Mark if Marshall could put in a door instead of a wall from his closet into the pantry! Just what he needs, not only direct access to the fridge, but to have to climb through the rest of our food to get there. Man, he'd eat everything! Hopefully that wall goes up tomorrow!




This last picture if the view from the dining room back into Trenton's closet. You can see the studs that used to be the back of the pantry. When the new wall goes up, that wall will be moved back to Trenton's closet doors. I don't know if you can tell where those are in the picture or not, but the dark areas just beyond the 2x4 in the old pantry wall are his closet doors.