Is it normal?

Is it normal to call your Mom and flush the toilet and say "did you just hear that?!?!??!"
(in my defense, I've been having to squat in an inconspicuous place in the yard to pee for 2 years...the excitement when our water was turned on was warranted!)

Is it normal to see a Starbucks cup in the background of 80% o the pictures you take?

(It's like our own fun version of Where's Waldo)

Or how about penguins?  Is it normal to carry around a penguin with you everywhere you go and document the things you do with it?  A penguin with a buttcrack no less (we like to spin his head around so you can see it at all times)...

(up high)

 

Are you starting to worry about us?

That is my niece Sydney's penguin.  My sister took her to pick out a craft to do a few months ago and she chose this penguin to color and "decorate".  So she colored him and drew a big buttcrack on the back of him.  We asked Sydney if he had a name and she looked at us like we were idiots and said "Buttcrack Penguin"...like, duh, isn't it obvious? As if we thought he might be named something else, silly us!   So we used to just call him Buttcrack, but have since shortened it to "BC Penguin", and each week she likes to send him home with someone new, and then we tell her what we did with him all week.  Well Buttcrack came to work with me and met some of my friends, he helped us do work at the house (hence the ladder shot), he helped us work on some trim in the woodshop...he was quite fun to tote around.  And we actually got to keep him for 2 weeks - lucky us!




Okay now I will get to my point.  I'm not sure that it's "normal" to want to just make/create/build everything you need.  But more times then not when I am looking for something, Lee says "what if I just make it?"  I can't tell you how many times those words have come out of his mouth in the past 2 years since this project started...but he always pulls through.    I have been searching for the perfect open shelving for our kitchen for months.  Googling, checking message boards, pinteresting...it's been a lot of hard work.  All of the clicking gets to my hand after a while.  After searching for so long and not finding what I was looking for, Lee of course says "let's just make them". 

I actually had thought of that a long time ago, but didn't want the brackets supporting the shelves from below like this:

And that's the only way I could find instructions to build them. I wanted the brackets above the shelves, so there was a clean line under the shelf.  So after telling him that he's like "right, lets just make them" at which point I just follow him around Home Depot trying to figure out where he was going with his thought.

 So he buys some metal strips (don't mind my terminology) and cuts them down to the same width of our shelves...

 He then introduced me to a fun new tool - a drill press.  He figured up what kind of hardware we would need to secure the brackets to the shelves and drilled holes that size in the metal strips that would go under the shelf.

I then primed and painted all 6 shelves:

And then we started attaching all of the metal strips to the under side of the shelving for support:

 Followed by "L" Brackets on the top of the shelf, which made them end up looking like this once complete:

So basically a screw goes in through the top of the L Bracket, down through the shelf and the metal strip and holds it all together.  It ended up being super strong, which was exactly what we needed in order to mount them like this (from above, and not below). 

And here's a shot with a few dishes just for fun: 

I'm not sure if anything mentioned in this post is normal, but it is my normal...and I love it!

Kitchen Backsplash!

We decided on marble subway tile as our kitchen back splash and here is the result!  I couldn't resist cutting down some wildflowers from our backyard to get a little color in there :)

 Getting it level:

33 boxes of tile:

All laid out to be inspected:

Because I just could not handle the ones with brown in them, Lee let me know that I'm a little bit of a control freak on some things...can you blame me? 

Yellow spacers still in so the tiles can set up:

A little better! 

All finished up.  Still need to grout and seal it, and put the outlet covers back on.  AND get around to the open shelving for either side of the kitchen window...

But all in all we are smiling from ear to ear!!

The trimming continues...

Have I mentioned what an annoying job this trim is?  We are almost done trimming out what we refer to as "the main part of the house".  "The main part of the house" is the living room, dining room, kitchen, mudroom and main bathroom.  We are putting all of our energy towards those rooms at the moment because, well, I'm throwing a party in 3 weeks.  Am I crazy?  Yes. Throwing a party before we even move in.  I've lost it. But it's really fun watching the last loose ends make their way together.  My sister is getting married in May, and it just made sense to have the shower at our place.  Without any furniture in yet, that leaves the living room and dining room as one big open space - perfect for tables and chairs.  So, that really puts a "due date" on all of our small projects.  Here's some of what's been going on...

Bathroom window in progress:

 Bathroom window after:

 Bathroom Door:

 Getting ready for some hardware:

Yay!:

Trim on the main opening went up:

Trim on the kitchen door leading to the hallway:

Trim on the front door (bad lighting):

We put the side panels on all of the cabinets and started putting up the deco strips (this is with the side panels but before the deco strips):

 And this is with the deco strip on the bottom:

Toe kick went in on the island, as well as hardware:

Hardware on the rest of the cabinets, too:

And a full shot as of last weekend:

Mud room floor before:

 In progress (I forgot to take an after shot):

We are still waiting on the plumber, they couldn't end up coming out when they had hoped to.  Hopefully they will call at some point this week *fingers crossed*.  We will be working on the kitchen backsplash and open shelving this coming weekend!  Time to take a break from all of the trim - we need a breather from that project :)

Trim and a Washer/Dryer

Well, there's good news and there's great news.  Which do you want first?  Hopefully good, because I'm going to start small and build up from there!  The good news is we are now the proud owners of a stackable washer/dryer.  We were trying to save some $$ on this purchase, so we have been scouring craigslist for a gently used model.  Were you aware of what a hot ticket item stackable washer/dryers are?  I certainly wasn't.  You have to really hone in on your craigslist stalking skills to land one of these bad boys.  For example, one was posted in Louisville at 7:10am on Monday morning, by the time I got to work at 8am and Lee called them someone had already bought it and was on their way to pick it up.  Um?? Really?  That left us driving to Oolitic, Indiana on Monday night after work.  4 hours roundtrip and we finally have the last piece of the puzzle in place. 

So, that leads us to the GREAT, fantastic, super exciting news.  Now that we have the washer/dryer we are ready to schedule the plumber.  Once the plumber comes out we can move in.  Guess when the plumber is coming?   NEXT WEEK.  Holler!!  Who knows when we will actually move in, we still have to finish up the trim and do lots of odd-jobs.  But the point is it will be a functioning house within the next couple of weeks.  Whoa.  Strange feeling!

In other good news, we have been chipping away at the trim.  I laugh at myself because I kept saying "oh the only thing big that we have left to do is the trim".  I would say it like it was nothing, "oh, just trim".  When will I learn?!?!  This trim stuff is a huge job.  Especially since we are doing it out of MDF and not just buying wood trim.  Why would we do that, we obviously don't like taking the easy route on anything.  But the real reason is it's like 100x cheaper to do it this way.  So, what that means is we take a 4'x8' sheet of MDF (it looks like this, but in big sheets):

Then we have to cut it into strips, sand it down really good, prime it, put it up and then paint it.  It's a really long, annoying process, but we are loving the results.  Here are a couple progress pictures on the trim:

More soon!! 

Small Detail, Big Impact

Something has been bothering me ever since the lights went in.  Remember this photo?

 

Well, here's a closer shot:

 

Can you tell what was driving me bonkers?  It might just be me, but the way the cords were exposed and kind of wavy was driving me crazy.  It just didn't look "finished".  Now, typically this is what down-rods are used for.  Down-rods are metal and you can slide them over the cord to give it a more finished look (the lights in our bedroom have down-rods, notice that you can't see the cords?): 

 I couldn't do that with the way this light was configured, though.  I would need to wrap something around the cord rather than sliding it onto it (if that makes sense).  After perusing Lowe's for a few minutes, I came across these guys:

I think you get where I am going with this.  I was able to spray paint the rod black and then shove the cord inside of it.  Voila!!

Check out the one on the left compared to the other two. So much better, right?!  I love a quick fix!