Kitchen Redo: Days 3 & 4

I have to say that the project is moving much faster than I anticipated, and I am so pleased with the way it's coming out. 

Day 3 Accomplishments:  Trim and crown molding added, flooring installed, appliances returned to kitchen, island light fixture installed

I love how the crown molding completes the look.

Cork floors being installed

I am loving these floors!  They are so warm, quiet, and comfortable underfoot.

A shot of the new pendant

End of day 3

Day 4 accomplishments:  Toe-kick added to bottom of cabinets, panel and trim added to back of island, hardware installed, floor transition piece (from kitchen to living room) added, granite measurements taken

A nearly final shot of today's work. 

I didn't take a picture after the hardware was installed. I'll do that tomorrow in the daylight.

My kitchen is almost fully functional now.  I won't have a sink or dishwasher until the granite is installed (a week from today), but the oven, microwave, and fridge have been returned to their rightful homes.  So now we just need to paint, install a backsplash, do some minor ceiling repair and install the pendant over the sink.  Of course, I need to clean the cabinets and begin moving everything out of the dining room and into its new home in the cabinets, but that will be fun.  I took some advice from a very wise woman and assigned all of our basic kitchenware and pantry items to cabinets/drawers while we were doing the kitchen design, so hopefully, that part will go quickly.  (Thanks, Jenn!)  I can't wait to see what this will look like with the granite installed!

Kitchen Redo: Days 1 and 2

If you were hoping to see pictures of jewelry today, I'm sorry to disappoint you.  I am 95% finished with the piece I started on Sunday, but I haven't gone back to it yet because I'm too busy watching my kitchen renovation unfold.  I figured this was a good place to chronicle the redo.

Day 1 accomplishments:  Old cabinets removed, old flooring removed, old (linoleum?) backsplash removed, soffit removed, recessed lighting installed, and new subfloor installed.

This is the lovely linoleum that was under our hardwood floors

This was taken right after the soffit was removed.  There was so much dust/insulation in the air, that the autofocus wouldn't work on my camera, but I had to share this scary picture anyway.

Insulation cleaned-up.  New subfloor installed.

New recessed lighting

Day 2 Accomplishments:  Ceiling patched, All cabinets installed

 The lazy susan and pantry go in

More wall cabinets

Island added

End of Day 2

This may be obvious to most people, but man, kitchen renovations are messy!  I obviously realized that I would not have a functioning kitchen for a week or so.  But I guess I didn't really think everything through.  If I had, I would have realized that I would be without a kitchen, dining room (you saw pictures in this post), living room,

and deck (yes, that's my dishwasher on the right hand side).

It is really interesting trying to keep a toddler out of all the action!

I'm Back

Most of my followers have probably given up on me.  If you haven't, I thank you.  Life got pretty chaotic, and before I knew it, 3 months had passed since my last post.  Um, OK...6 months had passed.  To catch you up on the past 6 months...we had a great summer, I am pregnant, and we're in the middle of a kitchen renovation.  It seems like every weekend has been booked with visitors, day trips, chores, playdates, and parties.  While this is all very fun, it sadly means that I have not had much time to work on jewelry. 

None of this is really relevant to my blog, except for the fact that we are renovating our kitchen.  "What does that have to do with jewelry?" you may ask.  Well, first of all, much of my design effort has been dedicated to my house.  Right after we painted our house,

Before

After

...we moved on to the kitchen.  I never knew there were so many options for flooring, granite, tile, lighting, and cabinet door styles and finish.  Hopefully, we chose well, and will be transforming this horrid kitchen (in all its cluttered glory)

into something functional, updated, and beautiful.  (Note my favorite Zen tea in the lower left corner.  Yum!)

You may also recall that my dining room serves as my jewelry studio.  Once again, this has caused a slight problem, as everything that was in our kitchen cabinets had to be moved into the dining room in preparation for the redo.  So, this is what my dining room (aka jewelry studio) looks like now:

Ack!  Now don't you fret!  This may actually be a good thing, because it forced me to move my jewelry supplies to a new room.  I have set up a temporary workspace in the corner of my home office.  The lighting isn't spectacular, but that is easily dealt with. 

So, now that my new workspace is ready to go, and I have run out of excuses, I am ready to work on a gift for a special cousin.  I picked out beads that I think she will like.  Now I just need to design the piece. 

I also need to get my good camera fixed.  I think the poor thing swallowed too much salt and sand while on vacation this summer, so I need to take it to the camera shop.   I'm glad I have my crappy old point and shoot camera as a back-up, but I really miss my good camera.  Hopefully, I'll have it fixed in time to take pics of the gift for my cousin, as well as the kitchen "after" pics.