Back in Business

And we're back to a functioning kitchen! After almost four weeks without a kitchen sink, we now have a beautiful one that has water and a drain and everything. You might not think it's amazing, but it is, at least for people who have been eating off of paper plates, licking utensils clean, and doing dishes in the bathroom. In addition to our sink and lovely faucet, we also have a new garbage disposal and a dishwasher. And it hasn't been all about utility: we've also finished putting the doors on all the cabinets, along with the knobs and handles. There are probably some in-between photos, but we're going to cut to the chase:

We needed a little help from our plumber Michael to feel good about the plumbing setup. He was a great help today.




And there we are. Cabinets, counters, a working sink, a dishwasher, and a cluttered dining/living room in the distance.



Another angle.







To celebrate, we made a nice home-cooked meal of pizza. It's been tough to cook things without a sink, so there have been a lot of microwave meals. Needless to say, it was delicious. But not as delicious as sliding a few of the vegetable remnants from the counter directly into our undermount sink. Sweetness.

There are still many things to attend to, but we're just happy we can live like normal people while we work on them.

Cabinets!

With the floors now done, we are starting to actually put our new kitchen together. Though they're the most difficult, we had to start with the wall cabinets (because they're easier to hang without base cabinets getting in the way).

This is our first cabinet. Once it was on, and on sturdy, there was much rejoicing.










Due to a heating vent, we had to make our first modification. Though it was the most substantial, it was far from our last. I'm pretty sure every cabinet has a touch of customization.







Here they are, side by side, framing our new cut-out very nicely.






However, because we're us, and because the cabinets looked so nice on the walls, we decided we had to take them down and paint, because we didn't want to make it too difficult to do the same in the future. We decided two coats of primer would do it.





And then the cabinets went back up.







And we could turn our attention to the base cabinets. This was taken with a self-timer. And no, we don't coordinate our carpenter wear; we're just All-American like that.



So, after much progress last night, with most of the cabinets in place, we were feeling good; we were ahead of schedule and things were looking great. Ilana was so excited that she asked me to rest the new sink in the cabinet to see what it would look like. I did so, and out of curiousity, held up our newly purchased garbage disposal to see how much room we would have under the sink (not much, by the way -- we've got a big sink and it rocks). Unfortunately, the garbage disposal didn't fit under the sink hole because one of the water pipes stuck out too far. We knew we would need a plumber (disappointing) and decided to hang it up for the night. So we took showers, and after Ilana finished, she noticed that the water wouldn't shut off completely. A steady drizzle was coming out of the shower. I tried all my tricks, but ended up having to turn the water off for our whole place. We went to sleep on a low note, knowing that we now had two reasons to call a plumber, and one couldn't wait.

Luckily, this morning, Ilana found a super nice guy on Yelp who lives nearby and came over within two hours. He fixed our leaking shower, showed me how to do the same in the future, and moved the kitchen sink pipe all for a ridiculously low price. He's our new plumber. With all that solved, we were able to turn our attention back to the cabinets.

This is our current setting. We're getting pretty excited; it's nice to get a sense of what our kitchen will actually look like, as well as actually have some room for things (Ilana has already used some cabinet space for pots and pans). Notice the sink is there, and the disposal fits fine this time.

The counter installers are coming tomorrow to measure everything so they can install next Wednesday. Then, perhaps, we can stop doing our dishes in the bathroom sink.

Holes in Walls

As previously seen, last week we removed the cabinets. Though part of the reason was that they were being replaced, another major reason was that we needed access to the wall behind them in order for our awesome plumber, Edgar, to connect a new drain pipe for our soon-to-be-moved-upstairs washer and dryer. So remember the last picture from last week (not including Seymour) and then take a look at our new and improved wall:

(drain pipe seen on right)

Don't worry too much about the holes in the walls -- my dad is coming next Wednesday to make an even bigger one so that totally 1970s pass-through actually becomes a useful opening between the kitchen and dining room. Let it be known that whenever we discuss the utility of the new opening, it is to determine how easy and/or enjoyable it will be for a guest to sit there and cut vegetables while we prepare food in the kitchen. So be forewarned -- if you come over for dinner, you're sitting at that window and choppin' stuff up.

Now, the downstairs is only a portion of this project. We also are putting washer/dryer hookups in our upstairs closet (we know the closet is not ideal, but it's more ideal than keeping them in the small kitchen or the expensive move out to the carport). Here's what the closet used to look like:


And here's what it looks like now:

More pictures of our kitchen "update" can be found here. It's not as fun/ny to write about the work other people do, but don't worry, there will be plenty of forthcoming Seth and Ilana shenanigans once we try to put together and install our cabinets. And our sink (which came today). Oh yeah, and we finally have couches. And our guest bed is now a guest futon. We're making moves!