Lights, fans, action!

I wasn't sure what to expect when we pulled up to our house at lunch yesterday.  There was no car in the driveway, which led me to believe our electrican, Greg, had never come. So when I turned the corner from our back door to our kitchen, I squealed!!!  Everything was in!  And looked SOOO much better in person than it did in my imagination (and it looked great in my imagination).  First I saw the pendant light over the kitchen sink...

Then off in the distance I saw our ceiling fan in the living room:

Followed by our pendant light that will hang above the dining room table:

But my favorite...of everything that was installed...is the light in our grey and white bathroom.  I was going for old-timey glamour for this bathroom, and this really adds to the effect:

And when it's turned on...

Check out that design on our grey ceiling.  LOVE IT.

After making my way to our bedroom I fell in love all over again with my idea to have pendant lights come down on either side of our bed rather than doing bedside table lamps:

(And if you look on the wall you can see we both have our own switches, score!)

And here's the ceiling fan in our bedroom:

After all of the lunchtime excitement I just couldn't resist going over again last night to put our cabinet faces on.  I was itching to see what it would look like more "finished"...

In the picture above you can see our hanging pot-rack that was also installed!  Exciting day on Tucker Station!!  I think tonight I will work on our "apron" for under the sink since our fabric came in.  It looks like this...

 One step closer!!

Countertops!

Our new eye candy arrived last week.  Smooth, sleek and oh-so-shiny!!

After having to re-schedule twice, our electrician is set to come tomorrow.  Let's hope, because I'm ready to take some more pictures!

Concrete to Granite

Ohhh, countertops.  This whole time we have been remodeling the house I have not been the least bit concerned about what kind of countertops we would get.  Lights...I was all over it.  Hardwood...searched for months.  Tile...we scoured the city, and ended up getting it in another city, and state, for that matter. Countertops...eh...I just haven't been too concerned with it.

It sort of reminds me of our wedding day.  For our wedding the last thing I was concerned with was the cake.  Lee actually made our wedding cake, so I told him to just do whatever he wanted and it would be a surprise to me on the big day. When we walked into the reception and I laid my eyes on the cake, I fell in love with it.

I mean really.  Do you see all of that beautiful basket-weaving?  It still blows my mind.  Well this is kind of how I'm feeling about the countertops.  It was one of those things in this whole process that I didn't put much thought into, and I feel like it is all turning out just great :)

Lee was planning on pouring concrete countertops until we came across some decent laminate countertops at Ikea.  So when we were purchasing our kitchen, we decided to get the laminate for the time being until Lee felt like messing with the concrete option.  Only there was a problem - you can't use laminate countertops with an undermount sink.  Boo.  So, concrete it was.  Or so we thought...

There is a stone countertop place two doors down from where we work called Eleet Stone Countertops. Lee decided to walk over there last week just to check out what they've got.  Well, it just so happens that we want black, and they had a remnant of a granite called "absolute black" that was on sale.  I say "on sale" because since it was a remnant, it was a lower price than if we bought it outright.  At that point, you just have to hope they have enough for what you need.  Did they have enough for what we needed?  No.  Well....maybe?   YES!!!  They found an extra slab out back of the same color.  So, unexpectedly, we are ending up with granite.  It looks like this...

And we pretty much love it.  I'm actually not sure what we love more, the fact that we are ending up with such a nice countertop, or the fact that we won't have to tackle another big project right now in pouring the concrete countertops!

This absolute black will go all along the outer cabinets, and as you saw in some previous pictures the island will have a butcher-block countertop.  All-in-all we are pleased with how this all went down, and we couldn't have had a better experience than dealing with Marty Leet, the owner.  He was fantastic and made the whole process very enjoyable.  Thanks Marty!!  (If anyone in the Louisville area is interested in stone countertops, I really enjoyed our experience with him).

I'm not sure when they will be done cutting and polishing our new countertop, but stay tuned because early next week I should have some really fun pictures of lights and fans and maybe even our kitchen cabinet faces will be on!! 

Happy Friday!! Have a great weekend!

Floors & Kitchen Cabinets

Hiiii!  I was going to wait another week and a half before I posted because that is when some seriously exciting pictures will be ready...but I decided to throw in a small  huge post to catch you up on where we are at currently. 

I kind of feel bad for the floor.  Poor floor didn't get our full attention after it went down.  Don't get me wrong, we "ooooh-ed" and "aaaaah-ed" big time, but we so quickly got moving with the kitchen cabinets that the excitement of the hardwood floor actually being in took a back seat.  And that's not where it belongs, it totally belongs in the front seat.  I didn't even get a shot of the entire floor looking all nice and snazzy before we started dragging kitchen cabinet parts out of boxes! 

During the week we had off, we were able to finish the floors by Tuesday.  Wednesday, we hit a brick wall.  We both went home about an hour after being at the house looking at cabinets and piddling around, and did something extraordinary.....   we took a nap!!!  And oohhhhh was it glorious.  I see many more in my future once we are moved in and have our weekends back.  I may even get to cook meals that takes longer than 15 minutes!  And I'll be able to wash clothes without having to round up quarters!  We might...just might...even get cable!  My car might be clean for the first time in a year and a half?   Can you tell I'm excited at the idea of moving in and getting settled?  Bring. It. On. 

Sorry, I got sidetracked with how awesome life looks from the view of the house almost being done :)  So, Wednesday was nap, jammies, lounging, awesome.  Thursday, we got back to it and by the end of the week had the cabinets assembled and hung. 

This weekend we will be building a little platform for the island cabinets to sit on and secure that, as well as the cabinets, to the floor.  It's not SUPER exciting to look at just yet because we decided to leave the doors off of the cabinets for the time being.  Whyyyy, you might ask?!  Well, we are waiting for the 16th.  On the 16th our electrician is coming back to hang lights, ceiling fans, pot rack, install our over the range hood, etc.  We thought he was doing this a couple of months ago, but in the middle of working on it he called us and asked if we would mind if he held off.  He made a good point...if they were hung too early they could get really dusty and dirty with the remainder of the work that needed to be done, not to mention they could get damaged in the process. So, as bummed as we were to agree, it really was for the best I think.  Plus, it will look a lot more finished when he does it on the 16th than it would have a couple months ago. 

After he installs all of his stuff, we can put our cabinet doors on, our hardware, and I'm thinking our countertops will be in by then (or at least close).  So, needless to say I cannot WAIT to see how it all turns out and take lots of good pictures!

At this point our task list is really dwindling.  This weekend we will also be working on building a platform for our kitchen sink.  We got an old farmhouse apron sink...

...and since the dimensions are so goofy we are having to build our own base for it.  Which means we will actually hang an "apron", a really cute piece of fabric under our sink like you see in old houses.  I like the idea of that, so was kind of happy when we couldn't find cabinets for the sink to fit on top of. 

Oh, and we have to schedule the plumbers to come back and set all the toilets and sinks and whatnot.  Kind of nice we just have to schedule it and not do it.  Maybe we will get to take another nap....    :)

Here are a few pictures of what we got into last week:

Before we started the floor in the kitchen/living room/dining room (this picture pretty much sums up what our life has been like for the past year and a half...messy): 

 Cleaner....

   Help from Lee's brother.  Thanks Andy!!

  Help from Lee's dad.  Thanks Charlie!

**I have to throw in a side note that BJ helped with our spare room floor...thanks to you, too BJ!

An after shot (I should have moved that box!):

 After, with the island up!

                                 View from the dining room into the kitchen:

Then it was all about cabinets!!

                               Wall where the stove will go, before:

After:  (Note: Still need to have the hood installed!)

                 We realized we needed to cut a hole in our drywall to secure some wood to a stud.  This needed to be done so we could screw the hood to the wall so it would be fully stable once assembled and hung:

 A couple more views just for fun:

I will say that the Ikea cabinets were overwhelming to look at in a million pieces, but once we got our groove down of putting them in piles (of what went with what) the assembly process was pretty easy.  It would be especially easy in a new(er) home where the walls were more flat and square than that of a 100 year old home. And the best part of all...there are slow-stops on the doors and drawers.  I literally did some weird crazy dance the first time I pushed one of our drawers in, it felt so good to just watch it easy on in rather than slamming!  Here's a video of what it's like in case you don't know what I'm referring to....

Goodbye tile, hello kitchen cabinets...and a pretty floor.

For some reason...

That I can't quite figure out...

I keep getting sidetracked during this whole floor-laying process...

Flooring is quickly becoming my favorite project to date ;)

(I get way too big of a kick out of taking pictures of him when he has no idea that I am doing it)

We really are making some good progress, and I was able to squeeze in a few shots of that stuff as well!  A lot has happened since my last post.  We have finished the tile (grout and all) in both bathrooms.  It's hard to get a good shot with the small angles of the bathroom, but here are a couple pictures...

Before Grout in Bathroom 1:

After Grout in Bathroom 1:

(We still need to caulk around the tub, etc, but it's looking much more put-together these days with the addition of the grout)

Before Grout in Bathroom 2:

After Grout in Bathroom 2:

All the final fixtures have been picked out and ordered, so now we just need to schedule our plumbing "finish". That is when they will come to put in all of our sinks, faucets, toilets, etc.  They will also hook up our kitchen sink, and washer/dryer.  I guess that means a washer/dryer will be next our our "things to buy" list.

After we finshed up the tile, my mind was on kitchen cabinets.  We both took off the week between Christmas and New Years in hopes that it would be the perfect week to assemble and hang all of our cabinets.  So, in order to do that we needed to get on the cabinet situation.  That's where Ikea came in.  We headed up there around noon last Thursday, and we left around 9:30pm with this...

And that's it.  That is our kitchen!  Can't wait to show you the "after" shot on that one!!

On top of all that, here are a couple floor shots.  We started laying it in our bedroom incase we ran into any snags/learning curves. 

First we had to fill in the holes that were in our bedroom floor (from the closets that were there when we bought it):

Then we had to lay down the black stuff. I forget what this is for.  It's some kind of barrier for something.

Then we started laying the floor down:

With this handy-dandy nailing device (you just bop the little black knob thing with the hammer thing and it produces a staple that is virtually impossible to remove...which we learned first hand):

And here's a better shot of most of the bedroom floor:

And just like that, the bedroom floor is done. Hopefully the rest of the house will be laid by Christmas!

Speaking of Christmas...I hope you have a very merry one.  We totally slacked on Christmas cards this year, but we wish you a very, very happy holiday season and a healthy and happy New Year.

Flooring, More Tile, A Christmas Tree & Chalkboard Wall Fun

This morning before work, Lowes came and delivered our hardwood flooring.  39 boxes to be exact.

 Here's a little teaser of what it looks like...

We are pretty much in love with it.  We went to visit it at lunch just to remind ourselves of just how much we love it.  I just sit and stare at it for way longer than I probably should.  And then I picture everything that will go along with it, and end up staring at it some more before Lee finally snaps me out of my daydream and we go on about our day. 

On top of flooring, we have made some tile progress in the main bathroom. 

Floor: 

Bath Surround:

Lee even decided to get action shots of me this time around:

We still have to do the wall behind the toilet and sink, then do the grout (in both bathrooms), and theeeeen we can lay that beautiful floor I just showed you above!

And on top of all that, we decided to get festive.  Check out our tree...lol.



And if you couldn't tell, we I have been having so much fun with the chalkboard wall already.  Lee's family was in from MI over the holiday weekend so I put it to good use:

Notice my two little gingerbread men at the bottom...Adam and Evan stopped by to play :)