The last weeks have been CRAZY PRODUCTIVE!

So the kitchen - yeah, we haven't updated you all on that for a while.

Rory contemplating the possibilities - and thinking that it might be fun to
play with that 220 line sticking out of the floor

We've come a long way in the last few weeks...

Cabinets were finally installed, no trim, no appliances (except for the range)

We got our countertops right after Easter - and the guys from Quality Surfaces did a great job.

We did the granite - Arctic Pearl on the back and under-window area
and Black Pearl on the island - the cooktop disappears into it.

And then things really started coming together fast

Black Pearl - yaaaarrrrrgggghhhhhh (Pirates of the Carribbean reference).
Please also note that the guys from Yoder Dame had completed the
upper mouldings and that the LED can-lights were on!

Add some glass backsplash tile, hardware (almost all of it), remove floors that used to end at the half-wall (because you need about 4 more inches to make it to the tile)...

And then add it back in.

Transition strips laid in temporarily to prevent toddler tripping

The house as it sits tonight - shoe moulding on the toekicks, light rail moulding in. All appliances in-place. LED can lights on.

Ignore the reflection in the back window...

Island view - still need to add some hardware and
protective film still on oven drawer

Sink area with spotlights on - glass tile and
dishwasher very visible. Note the sweet
glass door peninsula (two-sides with doors)
cabinets in the island.

SO CLOSE!

Fantastic Floors!

We had the tile laid this week as well. We went with the 12x24s in a side-by-side pattern after much discussion between the contractors, Tiff and myself (this was Tiff's vision - and it was better than mine which was staggered). I'm very happy with how it is turning out. We specified minimal grout lines (1/16") and it is going to turn out fantastically.

Some images that Tiff took of the tile laying and the space with the natural light. I'm really impressed with the transformation given that the space used to be so dark with the floors and wall coverings. I think we're both really excited to see the end result.

The guys from Yoder Dame putting down the first tiles

The space in natural light with the tile laid closest to the dining room. The stub-out is for our cooking island.

The backside of the kitchen with the bumpout in natural light.

Our cabinets came!

On Tuesday of this week our cabinets came. This was wild, as the company delivering had given us a window from 8-12...and unlike the cable company, they came way closer to 8:00 AM. We had cleared the space in our dining room to hold them - little did we know how big all of that would be stacked in that space as our contractors were going to be laying floors in the kitchen still.

Keith fixing some issues with our Ditra - Yoder Dame's attention to detail
is amazing. Also the before view from our living room.

The after picture from our delivery. The tall white cabinet is our pantry
unboxed because it wouldn't fit through our front door otherwise.

New joists and a ceiling!

So, earlier this week, after we decided not to vault the space - the guys went to work. Here are some pics of the joists going into place and our fancy new ceiling! (Fancy meaning that our kitchen finally has a new ceiling again - not that it's anything too special, but after not having one, having a ceiling again is nice.)

David and Keith get the joists spaced right and secured.

Keith admiring our fancy new ceiling - we like it too

Another layer of mud this morning and more plaster work

They'll be working tomorrow to so that they can get the skimcoats done before Monday when they will clean the floors and start laying the DITRA and Tile down.

Rain, rain - go away...

So it was raining this week...a lot. Keith came in on Tuesday and explained to us that he knew where the water he had found in our flooring had come from...our LEAKY drain-waste-vent (DWV) stack. Where the DWV stack pops out of the roof, it's flashed. In our case, the flashing was probably the same  boot that had been up there for YEARS.

This begged the question - are any of the other boots leaking?

Well yeah, a little and we were going to pony up and have Yoder Dame fix that up for us - but the real problem is our Chimney. Here are some images we sent to our insurance company. USAA was awesome because they let the guys on-site do the assessment.

Matted and wet insulation

Damaged rafter and a water drip line

Rotten decking and rafter from leak

Unfortunately, the evidence of the damage in the kitchen was long gone in the construction dumpster.

We wanted to buy "an old house with good bones" - after replacing the water heater (week 1 and the "home warranty" did not cover it), HVAC, the water damaged wall in the master bedroom, the cracking joists and now a big chunk of roof; I think it's fairly safe to say we just bought "an old house." And that our inspector sucked.

The vaulted ceiling that almost was...

It was the Friday before last that I got the bad news about the joists - that day, half jokingly, I said, "while we're at it, why don't we just vault this f-er." Note: All decorum goes out the window when you just found that mounting your cabinets to your ceiling was going to cause it to come crashing down and you're looking down the barrel of a $1000+ change-order for things that were supposed to be "good" per the home inspection.

Our lead carpenter, Keith, got to thinking about vaulting it over the weekend, talked to Tiff on Monday and Daniel from Yoder Dame called to let me know that we could do it, for real, if we wanted to; but had to have the decision made that next morning in order to avoid a work stoppage.

I said that I'd draw something up in Sketchup - so that we could all get on the same page and then say yay or nay.

The concept attached our cabinets to a limestone veneer chimney

The view from the dining room

We looked at it, loved it, rethought it looking at the pricing for materials and labor and decided that we'd never see the money again. Cabinets? Yes, Standard Kitchen renovation stuff? Yes; but the cost of restructuring was just going to be too much for what is not our "Forever" home.

Buttoned-up part 2 - Unbuttoned

So we had been optimistic too soon. Meeting with the contractors late last week, we talked about some cracking in the ceiling, some scab boards that they had put on the joists for additional strength, the fact that our joists were 2x6 and not 2x8 or 2x10 to support the island cabinet configuration and some ceiling bowing in general. The options were to pull it all down and put up new drywall or to seam it together and hope that it didn't crack later - despite the progress we had made, we opted to do it right and get the entire new ceiling.

Of course the road to hell is paved with good intentions - and we found that the reason the ceiling was cracking was because of a couple of weak, and one completely cracked, joist - incidentally the joist that the cabinets would have been secured to. 

When asked, by my brother, what I would have done if we had gotten to the finish point and the ceiling had falled down, I told him that I just would not have had words for it. We're all better off having done the work up-front. Though our kitchen looked like a cellulose insulation bounce-house...