Side tracked again

Oh yeah, and I did a little painting in the nursery this past weekend. I think that this room is done as far as decorating goes, we just need to pick up the crib from Liz and Brian (thanks guys!) and hang a few prints on the wall. Everything else is good to go so I can focus on finishing up the kitchen and half bath these next few weeks.

I have made FIRE!!

Sometimes, a picture truly is worth a thousand words...

While the cat is away...

So Suzanne has planned a "girls weekend" at the beach, which means I've got the entire weekend (minus a brief 65 mile bike ride on Saturday morning) to knock out a bunch of work around the house. On the schedule for this weekend is painting the nursery, painting the kitchen knee wall, painting the sun room, painting the entry hallway and stairwell, painting, painting, painting...YUCK!!!! With Hudson only 67 days away, I'm hoping to get all of the painting done with Suzanne and child out of the house so that they don't inhale the fumes. If I get all the painting done, I might also try and finish wiring the microwave hood outlet above the stove, connecting the dishwasher to the water supply and electrical supply lines, and hang the new coat closet door! Yep, it's going to be a BIG weekend again!

Coming soon to a kitchen near you

FIRE!!! Yep, the guys from PSNC came by yesterday to install the new natural gas fuel line for the stove. They ran some new piping, drilled through the floor behind the stove, installed a shut-off valve, and pressurized the line with air before capping it off with a pressure gauge. All was right in the world...until I walked downstairs and saw that the gauge had dropped from 25 psi to 0 psi in about 30 minutes of them leaving. I called PSNC and they came back out and checked the new line for leaks. Everything looked good in the new fuel line so they thought that the gauge itself had a leak. They re-taped the gauge and re-pressurized the line before leaving again. I've been keeping a close watch on the gauge as it has slowly dropped from 30 psi down to 17 psi. They told me that it would fluctuate due to changes in temperature, and considering that we had one of the coldest nights so far this season, I'm holding my breath that this drop in pressure has to do with the weather! I'm cautiously waiting for the Durham County Inspection Department to make an appearance soon! Once the new line passes inspection, I have to call PSNC to get them to come back out and hook up the stove and turn the gas on. When that happens, we'll be cooking again on Cobble Glen Ct.!

This ones for you, Wendy

So about 4 months ago, Suzanne's friend Wendy was down from Maine visiting with us. We were swapping home remodeling "war stories" since Wendy had recently remodeled her kitchen and downstairs basement room. At the time, my current kitchen remodel was just a twinkle in my eye. I was kicking around the idea of replacing the cabinets instead of just slapping some white paint on them and calling it done. Well, little did I know that my conversation with Wendy was going to lead to pretty much a complete kitchen make over! It kind of went like this:

"So, your kitchen looks awesome Wendy, I can't believe how much space you have in the kitchen!"

"Yep, that's because I moved my fridge into what used to be a closet, you could do the same here in your kitchen and it would really open up the space."

"Really?...where would I move the fridge to?"

"How about that closet under the stairs, you could cut a new opening in it so that the fridge was facing into the kitchen and then seal up the existing door...it would be pretty simple."

Simple, yeah, well maybe not exactly. But, I will say that Suzanne and I are both very pleased with how the kitchen has turned out...and we have Wendy to thank for that!

half a range

With the help of my neighbor, Travis, I was able to get the new dual-fuel slide in Bosch range installed last night...well, and least half of it. You see, the "dual-fuel" refers to the fact that the oven is electric while the stove top burners are natural gas. That's great if you have both electrical and gas service installed in your kitchen. However, since our old stove was electric only, I am having to get a new gas fuel line installed in order to have full functionality on the new range. The gas installation is scheduled for January 2nd, so hopefully "we'll be cooking" in early 2008! Here a few shots of the new equipment in the kitchen, brought to you by the fine German engineers at Bosch appliances...

What a day

not much in the mood to type, my hands are killing me from having to use a screwdriver for the last 3 hours because my cordless screwdriver ran out of juice. Needless to say, the base cabinets and lights are finally installed! Tomorrow I meet with the gas company to talk about running a new fuel line for the stove. I'll probably run by Lowe's tomorrow evening or Tuesday after work to start the ball rolling on the counter tops as well. It's going to be close, but I still think that I will have everything done in the kitchen and sunroom by the end of the year.