Demolition 2008: Kitchen

So, we're re-doing our kitchen.

Yikes. I feel so extravagent even writing it; like I have to justify all of the really good reasons why we're doing this. But really, you just don't know how hard it is to be the only house left in the country without cathedral ceilings, wood floors, and granite counters. So I'm merely giving in to the relentless fingerpointing and whispering about my laminate counters, nearly 30 year-old MDF cabinets with laminate veneers, and the charming faux-brick (and torn) vinyl flooring. And once you decide on getting new cabinets and counters, then you might as well open those remodeling floodgates and knock down walls and change the floor layout. So now we're well into full-blown gut job that will hopefully result in a much more efficient and workable use of space--oh, and those wood floors and granite counters too, of course.

(Warning: you can probably already tell that this will be long and rambling, and that maybe only my Mom and possibly Anna will be interested in reading every word, so I'll try and post lots of pictures for the rest of you to just scroll though.)

Besides the old kitchen being really outdated and, frankly, junk (although I'm dying to use much stronger wording here), it was also a really, really inefficient use of the space. And if there was anything taught as fiercely as religion in my own growing-up, it's making the best use of every available inch of space. I think that I've spent the better part of the last 2 1/2 years lamenting what a terrible layout it was (at least for our family's needs), but running through just about every possibility of how I could make it work anyway.


However, my DH (as he would be called in all of those online home forums I've started frequenting), relented to my constant whining and started figuring out just how we could realistically do this. He's actually been a really methodical kitchen designer (or KD...again, for you forum people) and super thorough with just about every detail of the planning/execution aspect. I constantly wonder how people who aren't married to him actually get by. (And lucky for him, the cabinets were scheduled to be delivered on my birthday, so now he can literally say that he got me new kitchen cabinets for my birthday.)

So, here's how it's breaking down so far.

Before:

And here's the new plan:

Here's Weeks 1 & 2:

Phase I: Demo the old kitchen

• take out cabinets
  
• take out floors


• take down existing wall between kitchen/DR
  

Phase II:

Frame in new opening between Kitchen and DR

Take down ceiling .....surprise!, look what's in the ceiling. It took Jesse (our friend we hired to do the labor) 3 hours of shoveling this insulation into large garbage bags to get it cleared out.

Patching damaged subfloor:

Newly installed (but not yet refinished) hardwood floor that is weaved in with the DR hardwood. Those lighter "stripes" are the places where they had to fill in with wood putty. It will all be sanded away at the final finishing. Oh, and that's a door in the background there. We got a new back door and new storm door (and changed the swing on both).
New electrical in ceiling:
Adam working on the plumbing. (Can you see that torch? Pretty cool, eh!)
New insulation for the ceiling:
New drywall for the ceiling and walls:
Hey, happy early birthday to me! These came on Saturday morning. Everything is stacked in the garage.

Week #3 should be the drywall taping/mudding/sanding etc. to get ready for painting and then on to the cabinet installation. We've been fortunate to move along pretty quickly thanks to our being able to hire our friend Jesse to do a lot of the construction work like the framing, drywall, doors, windows, cabinet installation etc.

Ok, so that's that so far. I'm basically giddy at how well everything has been going. So keep your fingers crossed for me, and I'll try and do a better job at posting the progress.

Hillary's Inner Tracy Flick

We've had a revolving door of house guests these past few weeks, and any extra spare time inbetween has been locked up in figuring out our kitchen remodeling plans (white or stained?), so I haven't done any real blogging recently (reading or writing). Feeling waaaay behind on everything, frankly.

Still, I just saw this video on Slate.com and I had to post it because it made me giggle. Poor, poor Hillary. Almost makes me want to give her a pity vote. Ok, not really.

New Favorite Sites

I admit, I have fantastic friends and I can't help bragging about them. So here are two new blog sites started by some of my dearest friends. Enjoy!

Desperate for a Good Read is a site for anyone who's ever wanted a recommendation for a good book, and for anyone who has ever read a good book that they'd love to recommend to someone else. Most simply, this is collection of books read and recommended by friends, for friends. And best of all, it's open to anyone who wants to join. Just let the site administrator know that you want to post, and voila!, you can. In fact, the more recommendations the better!

Tortillas and Oranges Here's a must-have collection of recipes from a fantastic and inventive and practical cook. Frankly, I'm almost sorry to see this blog begun only because I've been pilfering recipes from this friend and then passing them off as my own for years....and now everyone will be the wiser. But seriously, I'm all for sharing the good news of the good food gospel. Be sure to try the artisan bread recipe--I just tried it last weekend with my second batch started this morning--because you'll die at the results and then never go back to a store-bought baguette again!

Max Turns 7!

Last night, just before bed, we all took turns giving Max the last hug we'd be able to give him as a six-year-old. I had to go back for seconds and then thirds. Luckily six (nearly seven) is still young enough that he let me hug him again and again and then beg him to not turn seven as to not get so old that he would no longer be 'my boy.' Maybe it's the result of our just finishing reading Peter Pan but I wanted to sneak into his bed and keep on hugging him in order to keep him from turning seven in the morning.



Of course, I think Max is just a great boy all around. I love how he is growing into such a clever, thoughtful, and sweet boy. But I really love how he has always had an extraordinary enthusiasm about life, friends, learning and just generally having fun. I can't think of Max ever being in a "bad mood" or having a "down day." Certainly he can get upset over something, but he is rarely ever moody or mopey. In fact, we have the opposite problem in that we sometimes have to work to control the overabundance of what we call, the sillies. But mostly I hope that he never loses that quality the makes him approach the world around him as a place of unending fun. He has a gift for making others laugh and enjoy it too. One of Max's most amazing talents is the ability to make friends and really get along with just about everyone he meets. He has friends of almost every personality--discriminating he is not and shy he is not. He wholly and truly loves to play with everyone.



One of the other best parts of Max is his laugh, his true laugh. It's like a rolling giggle and cackle combined. I wish I could post a recording of it because it's wonderful and it's infectious. You can't help but feel happy yourself when you hear it.

We love you Max. Tonight, as we do every birthday, we'll tell you the story of the day you were born. Of how it snowed in Berkeley that day (just as it is now as I look out the window while writing this) and of how your dad had to ride his bike in the bad weather to and from the hospital. But mostly of how we were so happy to have you come to our family and of how we loved every single inch of you more than we could have possibly imagined....and we still do.

Jessica's wedding

It's been two weeks now since we returned home from Utah. I spent the first week trying to unpack and do the laundry and take care of sick kids (I can't say that I've really ever caught up on all of that), but then I spent the second week starting to hash out the plans for our upcoming kitchen remodel (yikes!). I think that the time has come for me to finally put up some pictures of our supercalifragilisticexpialidocious trip, before it gets to be like our Christmas trip to NYC that just may go forever undocumented. And especially now that Adam has informed me that to upload the pictures from our new camera is exactly the same method as on our old camera and that I really can't just blame it on him not doing it for me as the reason I've taken so long, well, there's really just no excuse any longer.

Our main reason for going to Utah was to see my youngest sister Jessica get married. It's crazy that she's old enough to do this now....because that means I'm ... No actually, I am so happy for her. Jessica is one of the sweetest and most generous and big-hearted people I know. We were really lucky to have Jessie live with us all last summer and we loved getting to know her as an aunt, as an adult (since she was only nine when I moved out of the house), and as a friend. Also, we were super spoiled as she was like my third arm and never said "no" to any of my asking her to babysit, paint the playstructure, weed the backyard, do the grocery shopping, take the kids to the pool, paint my bedroom, get the car re-registered at the DMV, etc. In fact, you may wonder what I did all summer if she was doing all of that. More than one friend told me in jealousy that they wished that they had an "Aunt Jessie" living at their house. So the only downside to her getting married is that she isn't coming back again this summer.

Their actual wedding day was really sweet and they are an adorable couple. Here are
a few highlights of the wedding, the reception, and the events getting ready for it:


The immediate Smith clan (sans Justin, still on his mission):

Jayne, getting footage for one of her famous video collages:
Jordan and Rachel (who have now announced that they're expecting #2--congratulations!)

Grandma and Grandpa J:


Getting ready for the reception meant a couple of days of work making candies, getting the floral arrangements put together, and setting up the reception. My mom was an amazing director of the whole operation.


The whole kitchen smelled sooooo good:




The day before the wedding my sister Jayne took my older kids for the night and day for a sleepover. The kids had a really great time and were spoiled by a trip to the Bean museum, bowling at BYU, lunch at the Cougareat, and fun computertime at Jayne's school's computerlab (she's the computer teacher at Wasatch). It was one of the highlights of their trip, and it meant that Adam and I were free for all the wedding reception prep. Thanks so much Jayne! Sometime she'll have to supply me with pictures of the day.

My sister-in-law Karen probably won't love this picture, but it's about the only one I have of her. She was a huge behind the scenes player and, frankly, we couldn't have done this wedding successfully without her. Not only was she the photographer for the entire event (and a really good one at that), but she made these cute little vests for the boys to wear, she put together all of the historical photos that were being used as the centerpieces, and was the general go-to gal for my mom since the rest of the sisters were either out of state or in school and full-time jobs.

Little bookends, Olivia and Melanie:


The four babies: Madison (12mo), Isabel (18 mo), Clara (14 mo), Owen (10mo)
And look whose baby isn't very happy about being posed.

Joce and Brian with Spencer (5) and Clara (1):


Max, Lauren, Spencer and Noah spent the whole evening on "gift duty." Too bad there's not an in-focus picture of this, but they really took the whole thing pretty seriously and were loving it.


Congratulations Jessie and Ryan. We wouldn't have missed it!

We found a way

So.....can you tell who's there in the background? You may have to enlarge this photo on your screen to tell just how close we actually are. (Curses that we forgot our actual camera and had only our phone's camera.) But we were only something like 10 rows back (what did I say about Delaware, eh?). No actually, I can't believe how crazy close we were considering that there was something like 20,000 people there!

As for the event. Wow. It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and there was some really great energy surrounding the whole thing. As Adam said, "It could be the equivalent of seeing JFK on the campaign trail." Well, we can hope it's that historic of a moment for our family, but for now it was a great afternoon of feeling apart of our community and excited about politics again. Mostly we couldn't let an opportunity like this pass by. I think Max's favorite part, however, was seeing all the police and ss officers stationed on all the surrouding rooftops.

Ok, so did we skip church? Nooooo--turns out that the rally actually started after church was over (the time originally published was for the event gates opening two hours earlier--during church time--that got me confused). So once we got that figured out we packed some post-church PB&J for the kids in the diaper bag and rushed out the doors as soon as the meetings ended. And I'm so glad that we did, because we loved it!

Commitment

News Flash: Barak Obama is attending a rally right here in baby-state Delaware where our, like, 2 delegates are up for grabs. Pack a picnic and spread the word because it's tomorrow morning in downtown Wilmington! These are the moments that I love Delaware. It's what you might call one of the benefits of living in a small-pond--where you're all but guaranteed a spot to participate in what might be called the most exciting political primary season ever~! (ok, at least in my living memory) when in any other 'blue' state this would be a crowded, street-blocking event. So send in my RSVP, because I'm pinning my Obama 08 rosette on now!

Oh.....except, that it's smack during the middle of church....of the Sharing Time that I'm scheduled to give.

Never mind. Barak, in 2012, can you schedule this rally for a Saturday?