I'm totally pregnant

Yeah, I couldn't come up with a cute way of saying it, so BOOM there it is.  And here is my 13-week-old spawn waving to you all with a monstrous mitt:

Hello, fetus!  I'm 14 weeks tomorrow and I'm just starting to feel human again.  Although I still can't poop, but manage to pee about 80 times a day.  I also had to do some serious editing on my awful acne in this picture:

I got pregnant the very first time we tried (thank you, Clearblue Easy Ovulation testers!) and I was definitely not expecting that.  While I didn't have any sickness, my allergies were unbearable and I was just depressed that I was tired all the time and didn't want to leave the house.  This may change going forward, but I really hate being pregnant!  Good thing there is a prize at the end :)

Oh yeah, the kitchen.  We are in the process of removing all the contents of the cabinets and are ripping them out this weekend. 

The cats don't like the noise, but they sure do love climbing into those empty cabinets.  

We have chosen a granite called 'Phantom Green' in a sueded finish.  I LOVE IT!  It looks like soapstone but isn't soft and doesn't require all that oiling. 

By the way, we are going with the new oak flooring in the kitchen that I posted about before.  This weekend is demo, then electrical, then drywall, then flooring, then I have a headache for New Years.  And then, our cabinets arrive and I go into labor!  Just kidding.  I hope.     

Cabinet time

Well, the cabinets are ordered!  We went with a local kitchen place to order and install the cabinets, we chose Koch Cabinets, a family company in Kansas.  I chose the Savannah door, a simple shaker style, in a white painted birch finish. 

They will look similar to this, only without the fancy glass doors on the left. 

I've scanned in the plan from our kitchen designer, these are a little rough but you get the idea.  We are not changing the layout of the kitchen.  Here is the sink wall:

Don't mind the floating sink, that is supposed to be a regular undermount stainless sink, not sure why it's like that!  The cabinet to the right of the dishwasher is a waste bin cabinet with two large cans behind a tall single door.  Range wall with huge cookware drawers:

The refrigerator wall will have the biggest changes, with a tall broom closet on the left of the frig, and the microwave in a cabinet under the counter.  There is a panel enclosing the right side of the frig, that is not pictured.  The counter on this wall will be 42 inches to make using the microwave easier and make it more like a bar height.  That micro cabinet is seriously not to scale, the drawer will be a nice big 15" high one and the microwave will fit perfectly in the upper cabinet.   

All the base cabinets (except the sink base) are drawers or roller pullouts behind doors.  I wanted lots of places to put heavy cookware, so I'm thrilled with this setup!  The space above the microwave will be open shelves that I have yet to dream up.  I'm might try to find some cool reclaimed wood rather than match them to the cabinets.  Maybe rustic like this:

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Or more modern with a natural wood tone.

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I also love this DIY pot rack shelving, how cool!

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I've made some simple shelves for the art room, so I'm hoping to find some thicker wood to do something similar in the kitchen. 

I can't wait to have all our dishes out in the open, we literally go through all our bowls and plates over the span of a couple days, so they will have no time to get dusty, and they are already white so they will look right at home. 

Our cabinet cost includes: full-overlay doors, dovetail drawers, full extension drawers and roller trays, softclose drawers, crown molding, light rail molding, toe kick, shoe molding, and shaker side panels for refrigerator surround. 

Total:  $10,238.00 ($8,438 for cabinets and $1800 for installation)

Considering the installation involves lots of trim and should take the professionals about 3 days, I'm more than willing to pay for it!  This total price is pretty much what Lowes wanted for installation of some Kraftmaid cabinets, and I like that we're going with a smaller family-owned cabinet maker instead.  One thing down, about a million to go.....

Done

Our driveway is finished, and it's oh-so-nice to drive on. 

Since I took these photos, we have filled in all the dug out areas with dirt.  I'm just too lazy to take more pics. 

I definitely had some plant casualties.  I'm hoping this Autumn Joy forgives me next spring! 

Everything is nice and neat and clean.  Unlike the inside of our house.  Yes, I owe you a kitchen post.  Shaun and I are still breakdance-fighting over some details, so I will update you as soon as possible.  We are also furiously shaking all the neighbor's trees, hoping some cash will fall out of them.  No such luck thus far. 

Because the kitchen isn't enough

We felt we needed more stress in our lives, so we (along with our neighbors) hired a contractor to replace the busted, 30-year-old concrete in our shared driveway. 

Holy mud!  Did you know we shared a driveway?  It is crappy because we can only park in our garage or directly in front if it, but when we get to split the cost of the new concrete, it's fab!  Our share of the cost is just $4400.  Hoodie hoo!  

The concrete guys worked fast on the demo and already had some new stuff poured within a day!  Amazing. 

While I love the new curb, it is much higher than the previous one, I will need to add dirt and replant all my perennials higher in the ground next spring.  Major sadface.  I'm not sure why that happened, but I guess there isn't much to be done about it. 

While I knew that some of my bulbs and day lilies would fall victim to the excavation, I was still sad to see all the clumps the workers laid against the house.  I just don't have the energy to replant them right now!

They still have to pour a little 4x4 sidewalk for the side door of our house.  That door has only been used to bring our washer and dryer into the basement, but we're hoping to make it more functional by getting a proper storm door and light. 

Among all the construction, I had to share my new rose, blooming like crazy in November.  What a happy sight in this gloomy rain and cold!

I can't wait for this driveway to be done, switching our cars from one side of the street to the other every night is getting pretty tiring.  Hopefully I have more kitchen info to share next week...it's crunch time on finalizing our plans and getting cabinets ordered! 

Oak, I just can't quit you

Here is the post where I admit that I don't want to give up wood for our kitchen floors.  I went back through all my inspiration photos of kitchens, and every single one had the majority of these elements:

White shaker cabinets

Black or white granite

Wood floors

Amazing stainless range hood and appliances

Subway tile backsplash

Schoolhouse lights, or something similar

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So, when it came to going over the pine flooring with VCT or linoleum material, I just couldn't bring myself to be happy about it.  We had a flooring expert give us a quote on ripping out the pine, installing new white oak that matches the rest of the house, and finishing on site.  He comes HIGHLY recommended.  We also wanted him to refinish the dining room floor, which is something we didn't do when we moved in...I have no idea why since we did the living room!    Here is the quote:

The 238 footprint is the kitchen, 429 is the kitchen and dining room together.  I think this is a very reasonable estimate for a job this large, it works out to be about $8.75 per square foot for finishing both rooms, which is an average cost for new wood flooring.  He would also jack up the sunken floor joist in the kitchen and put all the shoe molding back on in the dining room for this price.  I'm saving a little money by scrapping plans to put tongue and groove on the ceiling, getting a killer deal on cabinets, and buying a free-standing range as opposed to a slide-in.  What do you think?

So long wood

We made a lot of progress on the vinyl removal over the weekend. 

And then we saw this board, which didn't really look like the 'white oak' we were told was in here. 

Tonight a floor guy came to look at the kitchen, and before he even was two steps into the room, he told me our floor is pine.  He said the pine planks were probably never meant to be a finished floor, and the first layer of sheet material was maybe the original flooring in the kitchen. 

We also have a very significant dip in the floor at the doorway to the dining room, thanks to a cracked joist you can see in the basement. 

This has obviously caused the surrounding boards to crack and warp. 

He said he could possibly refinish the pine, but the broken boards are a problem and pine is not ideal for a finished wood floor.  It is soft, can easily ding and dent, and wouldn't wear very well in a kitchen.  Not to mention that the pine won't look the same, or take stain the same as the oak in the rest of our house.  This floor from Brooklyn Rowhouse is pine and had already been refinished, but it didn't last very long....

{Brooklyn Rowhouse}

So now, if we want wood, we're looking at laying down new oak in the kitchen to match the rest of the first floor.  Unfortunately, we'd have to rip out the pine to make room for the new 1/4 inch plywood underlayment and 3/4 inch wood.  This is mega bucks to pay in labor, and I don't think Shaun and I are willing to DIY taking a saw to the floor and ripping it out in chunks.  I'm thinking of abandoning wood and going for something that can go over the existing floor, like period-appropriate linoleum:

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I know I could make it look awesome, but I'm rather sad to give up the wood floors I really wanted.  Also, linoleum is not exactly cheap and I'm not even positive we could go back over the pine.  Right now we're waiting to see what the quote is for having this floor guy rip out the pine and add new oak for us.  If that is a crazy amount, we're back to something else.  This is a sad day.   

Kitchen destruction pt 2

We've been busy in the kitchen.  After my last post, the burning question was, do we have hardwood floors under the gross vinyl??

We decided to rip out this little baby cabinet next to the stove to find out for sure. 

It was kind of a challenge to figure out how to remove it, there were no screws or nails visible from the inside.  Once we got the stove pulled out, a swift kick by my mountain man proved the most effective way to get it outta there. 

Seeing all the cat hair balls under the stove was AWESOME.  Seriously, this is a real problem.

Gross cat hair aside, we got to work with a pry bar and hammer, loosening up that floor.  We borrowed a shingle-remover from our neighbor, which was kinda fun to use.  Why would he have that, anyway?  I'm positive he would never re-roof his two story house.  Anyway....

The verdict was that we have awesome, original white oak floors in this kitchen.  The planks are 3.25 inches, one inch thicker than the rest of the house.  And some ass clown poured black adhesive over every square inch of the wood to put down underlayment for cheap vinyl. 

Curses!!  Sadly, I don't think I can pin this on Boozie Susie.  I'm thinking this was done before she lived here, but you never know.  We knew that even if the wood couldn't be saved, we'd have to remove the top layer of vinyl, the yellow speckled vinyl/linoleum underneath, and the masonite underlayment before going over the top with new hardwood.  We scraped, yanked, and wrestled with 3 inch nails that were pounded into the underlayment every few inches.   

Tell me, is this really necessary?  These also do not feel good on your bare feet.  Yeah, I'm stupid like that.  Here is where we're at today:

We had a general contractor stop over to give us a quote on the whole shebang, he first told us we couldn't save the floor, but then when I brought my claws out and told him THIS FLOOR WILL BE SAVED politely asked him to check for sure, he scraped a little mastic up with his key and said he could do it. 

We actually plan to get as much of the black off as we can before any work is done to save $.  Luckily, the materials used don't contain any asbestos, so we should be fine working on this ourselves.  He recommended sharp scrapers, no solvents, and lots of elbow grease.  YAY!  Looks like I won't be doing anything fun for the next month. 

If anyone has gone through something similar, please help me out!  We already bought this tool which actually works pretty well for getting the top layers off:

Now we just need some advice on getting the black goo off the wood with minimal damage.  I've heard steam, hot water and vinegar, but I'm looking for real life solutions, so send them my way!