Saturday, December 31, 2011

New year, new walls

This week saw completion of the first quarter of our kitchen reno:  electrical and drywall are done and done. This was Wednesday morning: 
Friday night my sweet hubby primed the entire room with a high-quality primer (220 Wall Prep) from Hallman Lindsay.  It was a fabulous product, went on very smooth and covered the wallboard in one coat. 
Here's where it's at today!
Doesn't it look HUGE in there?  Also, these pics were taken with my favorite Christmas present:
The Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Ultra-Wide Angle Lens for my Canon Rebel!  This lens is so fabulous, it almost makes me angry.  We can all thank my wonderful mom for the improved pictures on the blog, ok?  In other news, I'm thickening up at an alarming rate....
This was taken at 17 weeks (I'm currently 18) and I've gained 12 pounds so far....yikes!  I'm finally giving in to the maternity clothes at work because regular pants were just killing my belly while sitting all day.  I'm feeling ok, just crying over still-horrible acne and a general feeling of not wanting to do anything.  Wah wah. 
Next week is the big ultrasound....my vote is GIRL, and hopefully she stops messing with my hormones very soon!  Have a great New Year's Eve, everyone!

Friday, December 23, 2011

Progress

This was the kitchen last night: 
 Today, the kitchen looks like this:
We still don't have electrical turned on in the kitchen, so it's quite dark in there with our constant overcast days. 
This is the beauty of hiring people to do the work for you.  We did put all the plywood strips on the studs ourselves, but our wonderful drywall guy is rocking out this job.  He just has the window alcove to do, then he starts the mudding next Monday.  Here is our new ductwork for the range hood:
And here is the new and improved toe-kick heat vent that was cut down from a wall vent:
They also put another floor heat vent in the window alcove.  It will be so warm in there with all the insulation and ACTUAL heat!   So far, our contractor cost is:

Electrician and rough supplies: $2400
HVAC work:  $325
Drywall and insulation, installation:  $1150

And we've only been without a kitchen for three weeks, so it's worth every penny to be at this stage already.  I will go into more detail about what was covered in the costs in future posts, we completely lucked out with our fabulous contractors!  Hopefully next week our floor guy will be able to start ripping out the old flooring.  YAY! 

Monday, December 12, 2011

It's electric!

Boogie oogie oogie.  Behold my fabulous rough electrical, for can lights, main lights, and many many outlets. 
The wires were looking pretty crazy before they all got corralled into the receptacles.  Our previous wiring was all running through conduit, it was a pain to get rid of all that old pipe.  Our electrician was amazing!
I had mentioned before that our doors and windows stuck out too far from the studs, so our drywall guy recommended we fur out the studs with 1/4 inch plywood strips on the two main walls.  A nice Home Depot guy ripped a full sheet down into 1 1/2 inch strips for us, what a guy!
This week is plumbing and HVAC!
Hopefully these walls get closed up next week.   

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Just.....whoa.

Last Thursday:
Last Friday night:
Here is the heat vent to the kitchen.  Which the previous owners (BOOZIE??) covered with cabinets. 
How about a nice home cooked meal?
Last Saturday:
Even though we succeeded in destroying the kitchen ourselves last weekend, we are a little worried about how the drywall will go on.  All the windows and doors stick out from the studs by 7/8" so I have no idea how that is going to work. 
Drywall Tom is coming tomorrow, electrician Terry is working daily, and HVAC Andy is going to try to figure out how to vent my fabulous range hood out with double joists, conduit and filler wood crowding the available space between the floor joists....it just never ends!
Even though I haven't picked my exact slabs of granite yet, I have purchased my faucet, and it is gorgeous!  I was so excited to see this baby in the mail today. 
This faucet has a 'new' model out now, so you can get the 'old' one for under $100!  YES, I got his fabulous faucet for $85 from Plumbersurplus.com.  Rush over there and get it before they are gone...it is a solid, heavy, brass faucet with ceramic discs, not plastic.  Love it.
I hate remodeling my kitchen, but I love buying the 'jewelry!'

ps - thank you all for your sweet comments on my little spawn.  I'm 15 weeks and feeling pretty good, if my face clears up soon I will be the happiest pregnant chick around!  Ok, that's pushing it...