manually distracted

I've been a little distracted lately and I had to check my blog this evening to see whether I promised to do the draw today or tomorrow!  Eeek!  Sorry for the delay!  My dh drew 'According to Kim's name!  Congrats Kim!  The bracelet will be delivered within the next few days!

You see, I've been a little distracted by the glimmer from my kitchen!  I've been busy wiping sawdust off shelves, carrying stuff back into the kitchen and trying to organize it in a thoughtful way.  We've started reading the appliance manuals too!  I'm delighted to have this learning curve!

Without further ado, here are some photos before we moved back in Thursday (and the photos don't justify the kitchen ~ in the evening, the countertop sparkles like stars in a very dark night sky ~ click to magnify them!):

For the curious, the paint is Benjamin Moore's CC67 Gray Wisp on the bulkheads, CC680 Raindance and the walls and Cloud White for the ceiling and trim.  The school house lights and hardware are from Rejuvenation.  Adding the bulkheads was a marvellous idea and is our favourite evening lighting source as the pot-lights cause the kitchen to sparkle.  We love the fridges and the induction cooktop is as speedy as promised in causing water to boil.  I just finished initiating the oven so it is ready for baking; I have to finish setting up the steam oven!  The renovation was a little short of 6 weeks which is incredible considering we had to have the oven cabinet re-made because we had focussed on the height of the oven and not the height of the steam oven to determine how high the oven should be from the floor.  We are so delighted!

summer charm bracelet give-away

I know I've been neglectful!  To make up for my neglect (plus somewhat explain for my absence earlier this weekend), I have made a charm bracelet for give-away to a reader or lurker who frequents my blog!  If you leave a comment to this post or email me, I'll include your name in the draw!  I'll make the draw early on June 26 so I can pop it in the mail as quickly as possible!

Here comes summer!  I can hardly wait!

crafting and organizing up a storm

Yes, I realize I've been neglectful so here's my past week in a nutshell:

The kitchen reno progressed slowly last week.  The painting is done.  The delay is waiting for the countertops' material to be ordered and cut out; we expect the countertops and backsplash to be installed this week.  With the built-in oven and steam oven, we discovered that we were focussing too much on the height of the oven and not enough focus on the steam oven.  As a consequence, the oven cabinetry was reordered and will be installed this week.  Although I am itching to post a photo to show you how it has progressed, I am holding out!  The kitchen electrical/plumbing is to be complete on June 21 and we expect to move back into the kitchen then!  The initial schedule was that the kitchen would be complete by June 17; the current scheduled completion date is June 21.  This shows the amazing scheduling skills of our general contractor (as the project started with demolition on May 10).

Little N celebrated her 5th birthday!  I pulled out two frozen cakes from the freezer and iced them on my freezer so she had 1 for her daycare and 1 for her home celebration.  To celebrate her birthday, I also made her a charm bracelet in an effort to capture her interests and personality at age 5!

I've also been participating in Baker's Dozen, an online scrapbooking class offered through Big Picture Scrapbooking!  It provides a scrapbooking prompt and layout on alternating days so I have really plowed through some photos in a short time!  It has been a lot of fun and, without a question, is the highlight of my day as I ponder which photos and supplies to use to respond to a prompt.  In addition to needing lots of white space on a layout, I have discovered that journalling is one of the most important elements to my scrapbooking layouts as I try to capture the emotions and details of why I've scrapbooked the photos.  (I often include my journalling on the back of the layout in case I run out of space on the front of it!  Click on the photo to enlarge it!)

 

one lousy week

We've had one lousy week.  Literally.  Lice has been endemic at N's daycare for about 4 months and it was our turn last week.  I have never seen an adult louse and haven't experienced lice in my life.  Until this past week.

And lice (or rather their nits) have flipped our reno-filled house.  Our laundry room, functioning as a kitchen, has been working overtime with all the clothing and items flowing through the hot wash cycle and into the hot dryer.  My dh has led the charge in the battle against the louse.

It was a good thing last week that I was attending a seminar within walking distance from our home.  Why, you might ask?  Because little N (whom we thought had her lice under control) bounced from her car seat, to K's car seat, to the driver's seat.  The next morning, my dh had sprayed my car thoroughly with louse disinfectant which then needs to sit undisturbed for 4 hours (and then needs to be aired out due to the stench of the chemicals).  I had contemplated taking our old Corolla to the seminar but its exit from the garage was blocked by a saw and the Corolla itself was covered in plastic as the contractor had been using the garage to build an ark to do trim for the kitchen.  (It has rained so much this year that my flower beds haven't been fully weeded, pruned or planted!)

But there are always silver clouds!  K is delighted that N has lice and is forbidden from K's room and from playing with K's toys.

I know I'll look back at this incident in a decade and laugh about this character-building experience which is primarily my reason for posting it.  I'll let you have the first chuckle; I'll need to wait about a decade for my sense of humour to return from this one!

temporary kitchen

I suspect it is one of those curiosities that we don't speak about, or at least I am always curious as to how others have survived renos.  I had heard of the horrors of the kitchen reno experienced by others and braced myself for ours.  As mentioned earlier, I consider our basement reno (completed late in 2008) as being significantly more horrific than the current kitchen reno.  Having a good general contractor for the kitchen reno helps significantly, but I spent a lot of time preparing for this kitchen reno too both in terms of what work would be done ( ~ don't forget we plunged into a full basement reno complete with concrete sub-floor removal and replacement with basically 3 weeks notice!) and prepared food in advance.  I cooked and baked up a storm prior to this kitchen reno as we have kids' soccer twice a week and had piano lessons once per week both by 6 p.m..  We had not counted on miserable May weather and had planned to barbecue a lot more than we have.

Let's look at the temporary kitchen facilities.  The basement laundryroom has become our food prep area.

The restored laundry sink on the re-used vanity (from the earlier basement reno) has been a critical and useful element of this renovation.

This antique table below from the 1950s belonged to my dh's grandfather from the 1950s and serves for my cooking area.  Having 2 electric elements has been a lifesaver for me!  (Unfortunately, I blow a fuse if I try to cook with the cook top at the same time as using the nearby microwave!)  The adjacent chest freezer is very convenient as it is a good and larger area where I do my prep work for cooking and serving.

We've been using my craft room (adjacent to the laundry room) as our dining area.  This has worked quite well (although I am squished for crafting purposes!).  I am so glad that I have linoleum flooring in the craft room as well!

With our temporary kitchen and dining facilities, we have dined for the majority of our meals at home and have managed to retain most of our sanity and remain on schedule as well!