Rindercella

Matt's entry at the Fife Christmas Eve Talent show "Rindercella"  the atrocious video quality is my fault.  I had two kids on my lap and a noisy one on the floor.

Flooring install

Thanks to all the advice on what flooring NOT to get on this mopping science experiment post I had a long list of requirement and dreams when I picked out our new kitchen/dining/family room flooring.

Flooring Requirements

Durable XCheck

Fairly waterproof and scratch proof XCheck

Easy to clean XCheck 

(very smooth- I mostly sweep and occasionally damp mop with a microfiber mop)

Flooring Dreams

Look like real wood X check- pretty darn close- hand scraped, knots, variation in color

Warm Xcheck

Quiet Xcheck

Large planks X check 6"wide x 48"long

No grout lines X glue down install- so if we ever need to replace one plank it's very easy.

I think we hit a home run with this plank vinyl flooring.  The look of wood but's it's waterproof, with almost the durability of tile- but it's warmer, and quieter. It's the Mannington Brand Adura Distinctive Plank Dockside Boardwalk color.  We picked out what kind we wanted then I called every installer listed on their site to get the best price quote.  Our installer told us the owner of the flooring store has the same kind in his game room- that made us feel pretty good about our choice.

October 22nd

Since Matt had already torn out all the old tile and scraped up the quick set and grout back in July the prep was very fast.  You know our tile was bad when living on concrete for 4 months was a huge improvement.    Flooring was the first thing we took out and one of the last things to go in.  For prep our installer scraped a little more and then put a very thin skim coat on the whole floor- the cement groove where Matt put in the new electrical line needed two coats but it dried very quickly.

I wish I had a picture of the installer- he was at least in his sixties.  He's been installing flooring for 35 years.  He was here with me and the kids trying to stay out of his way for 2 days, so we became friends.  He was born and raised in Ireland, so his name was Patrick of course- his last name was very Irish as well.  Despite living in the U.S. for most of his life he still had some accent and phrases that sounded Irish.  He also lived in a few other countries in Eastern Europe and Australia   He had some great stories!  

He did an excellent job on our floor and Matt and I both thought it was well worth the money and time saved to not try to do  it ourselves for the first time on our own floor.  We gave him a fairly good sized tip for dong such a great job and he hugged me, kissed me on the cheek, and called me dear.  It was charming; and a little weird!

 He left us 1.5 boxes of extra flooring so we could use it for our bathrooms, front room or hall.   I would love to have this flooring in the hallway and front room but our carpet is only 5 years old and we want to get our money's worth.  I also wanted to try out the flooring and see if I liked it.  If I do, we'll buy the extra boxes and replace the rest when the carpet gets bad. 

I'm so glad we decided to do the side panels on the ends of the islands and other cupboards.  So much better than plain boards.  Toe kicks were put in over the weekend to be ready for the flooring.

Going around the island and having both sides match up on the seams is the hardest part, so he cut all those pieces and laid them out first before he glued them down.  It goes right up to the edges- we were so impressed with how meticulous he was on the edges.

The hand scraped texture and variation in color and durability sold us on this brand.

Day 1 kitchen, pantry, under stove and fridge, up to dishwasher and one strip in the living room finished.

 Day 2 Oct 23rd only took him part of the day to do the rest since it was mostly long straight lines except for the window seat, fireplace and door needed cut-in.

It's a low gloss finish so it doesn't show dust as much as a high gloss would.

 That ice chest on the fireplace is where all my essential dishes were stored!

Crown molding sneak peak on cabinets!  I love them!

Just the new flooring alone is a huge source of joy for me!  I love to sweep- it's so much warmer, smoother and quieter!

Kitchen Countertops

The week after the cabinets were installed we had the counter tops lined up to minimize the time without a working kitchen.

On Monday evening Oct 15th our good friend delivered and installed the wood island counter top.  One of our other friends had a counter top like this and Matt fell in love with it.  I have rarely seen him so excited about anything as we was about this counter top   Since it is perfectly square 52"x52" we got to decide which direction we wanted to wood grain to go after it was made and we could move it around before he screwed it into the board underneath.

It's solid walnut pieces glued together with a food safe wax finish that we put on about once a month.  We decided the rounded edges would be easiest to clean.  I liked the look of the more detailed edges but I didn't want to have to clean all the little grooves   The kids have bonked their heads on the corners a few times- I'm hoping putting the bar stools under will help with that.

It really is a beautiful piece of wood with some great character.  It's not heat proof and scratch proof like the granite- but overall the maintenance/babysitting hasn't been bad.  The beauty more than makes up for it! It's not a butcher block- so we won't be cutting on it- we just really liked the look and feel it brought to the kitchen to have the island be a contrasting warm material to the granite.

 On Wed. Oct 17th the granite counter tops were installed in one afternoon.   We went back and forth on solid surfacing, quartz, granite.  But after looking at them in person we loved the granite so much more.  There weren't too many with grey in them that would also look good with our copper sink. This granite is called New Azule Aran and it's from Brazil.  Even buying this stuff was quite the experience.  We bought 2 slabs and we got to inspect and pick our exact slabs. The pictures don't do the granite's depth, sparkle, and coloring justice but we love it!!  We went with the 6mm edge in the kitchen which makes it look like a huge piece of granite.  It really is a work of art.  It hides everything- I have to remember to wipe them off because it hides the crumbs so well.

They had to build it up with 2 boards because of the thick edge.

We only have one seam in our granite in the whole house - right behind our sink on the small section behind the faucet.  There are seams on the edges and back splashes also I guess.

They put in the sinks at the same time- then Matt did all 5 faucets, disposer, and new dishwasher himself over the next couple of days. Functional sinks again!  It was so nice to have counter tops!   I waited awhile to unpack everything since we were still waiting on some cabinet doors but it made a huge difference to have the sink and counters back!

Kitchen cabinet install

 Okay, okay.  Here are some pictures of the remodeling process.   I feel too much pressure to take the "final" pictures because it's not decorated, missing baseboards, window seat not painted etc.  But I'll put up some of the process pictures this week and then I'll take some pictures of where we're at now.   I am loving it so much!

Weekend of Oct 13- the major cabinet installation

We spent by far the most time deciding how to use our corner- corners are tricky and so often wasted.  We didn't think our pots and pans would fit well in a lazy susan but we still wanted to have easy access to the whole cupboard.  So we had a fixed corner shelf installed- the shelf can be moved up and down but it can't come out- it was so big they had to put the shelf in before they finished the cabinet frame!  So far it's the perfect pan cupboard with a big open-out hinge door.  That skinny cupboard is for cookie sheets, trays, and cutting boards.

One of the main concerns with living in this house long term is that we'll have to give up our office room as a bedroom at some point.  Having a small desk in the kitchen area will help ease that transition I hope. We'll have our computer in a more accessible location also.  Our first plan included file cabinet size drawers and a cupboard to hide the printer on the counter top but we scaled it back to leave more space in the dining area. Matt had to move the phone jack to leave room for the larger bank of upper cabinets on this wall.

Our cabinet guy was hesitant to make such skinny cupboards on each side of the large corner but we insisted they would be more useful than open shelving holding dusty knick-knacks because we really wanted the corner cupboard.  They are perfect for vitamins and spices.

Sink under window and dishwasher directly to the right of the sink.

 We set the sink in to see how it would look.  Watch how quickly the copper patinas once we start using the sink.

We built in around the fridge and it really made the kitchen come together- it's the perfect cupboard to store things you don't need often or don't want the kids to get.

The island with an outlet on each end- Matt worked so hard on that.  We tweaked the island placement slightly once we had the cabinets to look at in our kitchen.  Matt did this part while I was gone- but he did it perfectly.  We have larger space between our island and our fridge than most but it lines up with the edge of the sink and we love it.  3' is the minimum you want we discovered.  Our dishwasher can open and you can still easily walk around it.

Window seat was finished Oct. 31st.  He built the two boxes and then built the rest on site.  The lid doesn't open up to the two side sections- so we lost a little space.  If we wanted it back we could always cut a hole through the inside boxes...

We will be painting it ourselves.  As soon as we work up the courage to paint on our new floor- we tried very hard to avoid painting afterwards as much as possible!

After the first weekend of installation, the kitchen looked like this- still a few doors missing, toe kicks, crown molding, a couple end panels, but it was amazing how fast this much went in.

Daily Snapshots from Fall

I came in to wake them up to go to family Sunday dinner and this is what I found. Olly was in a different bed when I put them down. Also note they are in fetal position- head to toe.

Olly threw a horrible fit while I was visiting teaching- then he came home and did this.  Do you think his sisters are not letting him get enough sleep maybe?

I looked over and found this- this was after the primary program- Charlotte informed me they were having church.

Accidental picture from my phone while I ran with my sister along the canal- I like it.

"I a turkey!  Oops!"  (If you own Red Hat Green Hat by Sandra Boynton this totally makes sense)

They were flipping out about a spider on their bike.  I came out and found the "spider". Olly who has recently turned into a bug killer was whacking it with his car!

First time eating out for breakfast in their lives- McDonald's pancakes and yogurt parfaits.

I had my hair chopped. A lot.  I love it.  The best parts of getting so much chopped 1.How much quicker it is to do my hair 2. Everyone actually notices when it's this much hair gone.  Even our non-communicative cabinet guy said something!  ha ha.  Unfortunately I don't have a picture uploaded but it looks about the same as it always does when I chop it.

I got to go to Time out for Women with my mom, 2 sisters, and 1 sister-in-law.  I was tickled when I saw our good friend Kenny Pike's book at the bookstore there.  I highly recommended to the lady who was considering it for her son.  So if you need to buy a gift  for a boy 8-13 or so this is a great read- funny and hilarious drawings as well.

Love them!

Thankful

The kid table.  The trio of best girl cousins together again!

We hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful too!