What A View

Well, we won't be enjoying the view from our kitchen sink for a few weeks.  At least until the sink gets moved to it's new location.  Our new kitchen window has arrived and the masons came back today to start bricking up the old one.  Tomorrow they will lay the brick outside and will start cutting the remaining window frame to be big enough to fit the new window.  We're at that stage where I'm thinking, "I hope we're doing the right thing, here.", but it's too late to change our minds.  I hate this stage.  You'd think I'd be used to it by now :)  On a positive note, I was super worried about loosing the light by bricking up this window, but it didn't seem too bad once it was done.  Once the other window is bigger and the doorway to the dining room is opened up a little, I think we'll be just fine.

It's Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better

We spent a few hours today ripping down part of the old ceiling, ripping up part of the old kitchen flooring and taking down part of the wall that used to separate the kitchen from our small bedroom closet. 

Then we spent the rest of the day cleaning up our mess and tasting dirt. Blegtch!

There And Back Again

We tore up the last of the original oak flooring tonight.  We reminisced about how refinishing those floors was the very first project we undertook when we bought our little house 8 years ago.  Now there's not a trace of them.  Eight years ago I couldn't wait to get rid of that UGLY carpet.  I loved those floors when they were finished.  Tonight I couldn't wait to get them up again.  Funny how time changes your perspective.  We're looking forward to a new window next week and, if we're lucky, we will actually start building this kitchen instead of tearing it apart.

 

What's The Plan, Stan?

We have slowly but surely started to plan our (Brian's) kitchen renovation. We have met a few times with our contractor and hope to have this project under way in the next few weeks. We have ordered the new kitchen window and have met with the masons to get a bid on the window work they will have to do. That's all boring work. The fun has been in getting a plan for the kitchen cabinets. Here are the initial plans the carpenter sent us. The main thing that we know will be changing is that there will be no upper cabinets above the lower bookshelf area. We will be putting a whiteboard calendar on the wall there. Other than that, we think the plans are pretty close to what we will have done. It will be a beautiful, even if galley, kitchen. We cannot wait!

Plaster Man

Brian has now put a couple coats of plaster over the mortar. He'll probably have to do another coat or two on some spots, but it is looking good. One of these pictures probably would have sufficed, but he hates me putting pictures of him on this blog (and rarely lets me take any of him) so when I have a few, I have no choice but to post them all. ;)

Filling In The Holes

Brian decided to test his masonry skills today and slap some mortar on the exposed brick where the walls used to be. A quick trip to our friendly neighborhood Ace and $10 later, he was on his way.

Here's what it looked like before he started.







After he put the mortar on these two spots, he got all gung ho and decided to move the refrigerator and pull the last piece of the wall away that was there so he could mortar that too. Great job, honey. Now lets see what you can do with plaster.

And no, Brian, this does not mean you can now become a Mason.

The Results

Many apologies to Uncle Brad for the delays in this post. Here are the results of the bricked up window. We still have a little scrubbing to do, but all-in-all we hare happy with the results. It's pretty difficult to get a perfect match on these old houses. I am really glad we kept the original brick.