Kitchen Renovation DONE DONE DONE!!!

Quote for the Day:

"Do not plan for ventures before finishing what's at hand."~Euripides

Almost 3 1/2 years after we started renovating our kitchen, it is FINALLY DONE!!!  You cannot even begin to fathom how happy that makes me!!!  

At the end, Andy finally threw in the towel and told me to hire our friend, Jeff, to finish up the job.  I had been through enough waiting that I readily agreed.  The last couple of weeks have been difficult as we lived with a torn-up kitchen...everything out of the pantry and the free-standing cabinet was moved into the dining room and living room so that the kitchen could be finished up.

The remainder of beadboard was applied to the walls, crown molding added, baseboards replaced, walls painted, and new flooring installed!  My part of the job was to paint the walls and shelves of the pantry before the flooring was to be done, so last weekend was spent doing just that.  After painting the shelves, I covered them with peel-n-stick floor tiles, which has become my modus operandi.  Since discovering that little trick on Pinterest, I now cover all of my shelving with them now.  It makes them very easy to clean and won't need to be changed in my lifetime!  And if anything ever spills on it, a sponge and soap and water makes clean-up a breeze!!  I even cover the shelves inside my cabinets with them...makes it really nice under the sink...if there is ever a water-leak, the wood of the cabinet won't get ruined!  It's like spilling water on your floor...get a towel and mop it up!  LOL

Okay, okay, okay...twist my arm and I'll show you pictures of my new kitchen!!!

I'll start off by showing you what the pantry looked like after I finished last weekend with the painting and shelving...

There were free-standing plastic shelves against the left wall and in front of the window.  Those have been removed and have been replaced by chrome wire shelving units. 

The peel-n-stick tiles on the shelves...

Now for the kitchen tour...25 cents please!  :) 

These are our new counter-tops.  They are laminate, but look like granite.

This is the north-west corner of the kitchen.  The doorway to the dining room is just off to the right that you can't quite see.  I have strategically cropped out anything having to do with the dining room because of the HUMONGOUS mess in there!  ;)  I still have to apply the hardware to the doors/drawers in this bank of cabinets, but that will get done eventually.

This is the north-east wall of the kitchen and is where the fridge resides...it was still pulled out in this picture because Andy had to run new water line to the ice maker, which he did yesterday.  The doorway to the dining room is to the left in this picture.  The door that you see on the right goes to the basement.  This picture shows the crown molding and beadboard well.

Continuing on around the kitchen, this is the south-east wall.  The door on the left is the basement door, again, and the door with the window goes to the side part of the wrap-around porch.  

This is the south wall.  We did the stonework two years ago, but I just got it sealed last weekend...something that has been on my "to-do" list.  It is called AirStone and was sooooooooo easy to install but really made a big impact in this kitchen.  There is a vintage, metal, free-standing cabinet that usually resides between the stove and the outside door.  It had some rust on it so I sanded and spray-painted it last weekend and it hasn't made it back into its spot, yet.  That will come later today.

If you continue turning to the right, you will come to this wall...the west wall...

This door leads to the walk-in pantry that I showed you in the first pictures!  Here it is with the new flooring...

This flooring is Highland Hickory XP by Pergo.  It is 10mm laminate and has the padding already attached.  However, since we have an 86 year-old house, we decided to go ahead and put down an underlayment anyway to help keep down noise, etc.  I can tell you that this floor feels as solid and is almost as quiet as our hardwood floor that we had installed in the foyer!  This is the first laminate floor we've ever had in a house and I am quite impressed!!!

This weekend has been spent getting things put back into the pantry in an ORGANIZED manner so that we can actually FIND THINGS when we need them!  What a concept!  LOL

And now...I have to get back at it...there is so much to do with company coming in on Friday!!  Thanks for taking the tour!  :)

Loretta

A Tale of Two Floorings...

After getting the last of our cabinets, sink, and dishwasher installed by Jeff last week, Andy told me to ask Jeff to finish up the kitchen renovations.  Unfortunately, that meant that we were going to need flooring much sooner than I had anticipated...like within a couple of weeks.  However, with Andy's and my work schedules, that also meant that we had limited opportunities to go shopping for flooring.

An opportunity opened up on Friday evening for us to go looking.  Our first stop was a local discount store that carries discontinued items and always has a lot of flooring.  We found three wood laminates that we liked, so we bought a box of each to bring home and test against the cabinets.  Our next stop was Home Depot where we found some manufactured hardwood DARK "cherry" bamboo that they were discontinuing for a ridiculously low price.  I jumped on that because I thought it would be better than laminate and we bought all that we would need for the kitchen floor.

However, when we got home I looked up the reviews online of the bamboo flooring and people said that not only did it scratch WAY TOO EASILY it SHOWED DIRT way too much!  :(  Well...since our cleaning schedule isn't exactly what we would want it to be, we decided that this flooring wasn't for us.

That brought us back to the three boxes of flooring that we had purchased at the discount store.  Andy brought them and we tried each of them up against the cabinets.  We thought we had a winner with one of them when we checked them in the daylight hours.  However, when we "checked one more time...just to be sure" at night, it looked HORRIBLE in the artificial light.  There wasn't enough contrast between the cabinet color and the floor color, so I felt like I was in a really weird tunnel...or on a boat (you know how the inside of a boat is all wood...ceiling, walls, floor...all the same color?)  I literally felt like the walls were closing in on me!  :(

My daughter actually has a degree in Interior Design, so she has been my guide and counselor through some of this.  When I asked her about putting laminate down in the kitchen, she recommended that it should be at least 10-12 mm thick so that is the "better" laminate and can hold up to more use and abuse.   She didn't feel we'd be happy with the way that 8 mm laminate would hold up in a high-traffic area like our kitchen.  She also gave me other pointers...like keep an extra box on hand so that if anything happens, the bad boards can be pulled up and replaced.  The laminate in the above pictures was 8 mm...so between that fact AND the fact that I felt sea-sick in my own kitchen after the sun went down, I knew that we had to take ALL of the flooring back that we had purchased on Friday and go shopping for more.  For the record, Andy was happy with this flooring...it didn't have the same tunnel/boat effect on him that it did on me.  But then Andy is the kind that grabs something off the shelf, installs it, and calls it good...regardless of the aesthetics!  

We live in a rural area without a whole lot of choice...at least not for us that have limited budgets, so we decided that on Sunday we would get up VERY early (for me, on a weekend, anyway), return the flooring that we had bought, and then head up to Pittsburgh (100 miles away) to the nearest Lumber Liquidators store where, hopefully, we could find some flooring that suited me.  The agreement between us was that the next flooring purchase we made was going to be the final flooring purchase, so better come prepared!  

This morning, bright and early, we took a cabinet door off of one of the cabinets (so we could put it up against the flooring we were going to look at to see how they would go together) and we returned the flooring to Home Depot.  After we did the return, I headed back out to the car to wait for Andy because he had to go to the OTHER END of the store to pay for one little item he needed.  When he got back to the car he told me about some flooring that they had stacked near the checkout registers that he thought looked "nice" and was 10 mm thick.  I kinda did an "eye roll" because I know that he and I rarely agree on what is "nice"...or even "okay"...but when he said it was 10 mm, I agreed to go back in and check it out.

So, cabinet door in hand, we went back into the store.  When we put the door up against the flooring display, I think I almost gasped in astonishment!!!  It was PERFECT!!!  And exactly what I had envisioned all along...a darker floor to contrast with the cabinets, but not too much grain to conflict with them...and not too dark as to show dirt and scratches!  

It is Pergo XP Highland Hickory and we ended up buying what we need for the kitchen, plus extra to keep on hand in case of a water accident, etc.

What is funny is that the cabinets are hickory...which has a lot of grain lines, so I was looking for something that didn't have much grain line so they wouldn't "fight" with each other.  However, this flooring is hickory, too...just a darker stain!  Totally surprised me that the best flooring to go with hickory cabinets is hickory!  Who knew??

Anyway, both Andy and I are extremely relieved that we didn't have to go all the way to Pittsburgh today to try to find flooring!  Instead, we went out to breakfast and laughed and joked and had a good time, now that all the "stress" of the whole flooring debacle was over!   We then came home and he installed a cabinet organizer under the sink and I proceeded to put my cleaning supplies away in my nice, new, slide-out basket organizer!  :)

Loretta

FINALLY!!!

Quote for the Day:

"I want a house that has got over all its troubles; 

I don't want to spend the rest of my life bringing up a young and inexperienced house."

Jerome K. Jerome

Over three years ago we started renovating the kitchen in our 1927 Victorian home.  We are novices and did what we could, but every time we came to a "bump" (meaning anything that stymied Andy), work came to a standstill...sometimes for months and years at a time!!!

We have been down to removing the sink and metal cabinet for a while now.  We are replacing it with an "L" shaped cabinet, new sink, and a built-in dishwasher...all of which is new do-it-yourself stuff for us, even though Andy is GREAT at plumbing.  Cabinetry and countertops??  Not so much.  

But, as luck would have it, a friend that has worked construction posted on Facebook a couple of weeks ago that he was looking for some jobs to do.  Well....I jumped right on that puppy!!!  He came by and saw what we needed done and agreed to do the job!!  

This past Wednesday when I left for work, the section of kitchen in question looked like this...

Why, yes...that IS a hole in the wall behind the dishwasher where the pipes and electrical run!  

For three days our friend, Jeff, worked on the kitchen installing the cabinets, countertops and sink and this weekend it looked like this...

Why the pillow??? 

Andy spent all of Saturday installing the faucets, drains, and plumbing!!!  By Saturday night, I once again had a sink and running water in the kitchen!!!

Such a beautiful site!!!  And do you see that little faucet over to the far right???  After 15 1/2 years I now have filtered drinking water directly into the kitchen!!  We used to have a spigot with filtered drinking water in the basement and had to go down and fill up plastic 1 gallon jugs to get it to the kitchen!  *heavy sigh*  Oh the inhumanity of it all!  

I'm so happy that we are finally on the "home stretch" of the renovations with this last major hurdle.  Next is finishing up the beadboard and then onto the flooring.

In the meantime, the less glamorous part of remodeling...everything that is normally put away is now all over the kitchen table, the dining room table, and the dining room floor!!!

I will be a very happy gal when I can finally get my house put back together!!!

Loretta

Rainy Days and Mondays....

Quote  for the Day:

"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might"

~Ecclesiastes 9:10, King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)

Happy Monday and Happy October to all of my readers!  I hope this week and month finds you well!  We are definitely into fall now...no denying it anymore!

Andy & I spent Saturday working on the kitchen...trying to finish the stonework.  I was hoping to finish it this past weekend, but alas, that was not to be.  However, we did put a good dent in what needed done.

Saturday morning the chimney looked like this...

 ...and by evening, it looked like this...

I worked on the chimney while Andy worked on cutting/sanding/shaping the stones that needed shaped to fit around the curved molding of the window and door.  It was very time-consuming work, but so far it is looking FANTASTIC!!! 

It seems that applying this stone should go much faster than it is, but it's kind of like putting a puzzle together.  You have to fit stones together, making sure that your seams/joints are staggered and don't line up.  Plus you want to stagger the dark and light stones and also the narrow and wide stones so it all looks "random".  Do you realize how hard it is to make something look "random"???  LOL  Then there is the "cutting" that needs to be done to get the final stone in the row to fit snugly...and since we are doing the cutting on the porch, there is all the running in and out of the house to do that. 

So...that's why we aren't farther along with the project.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  :)

We had some other things we needed to do on Sunday, so we weren't able to work on it then, but plan to get back to it this coming weekend.  We are having company the following weekend, so I'm really hoping we can it finished up this coming weekend.  Wish us luck!  :)



Today, after I got my "pearly whites" cleaned and polished at the dentist, I met up with a dear friend, Theresa Noble, at Panera Bread where she proceeded to coax cajole coach me with some crocheting.  Yes, Folks...I do know how to do more than just quilt!  Although I don't crochet very often, it is something I learned to do at the age of 13 and now do it just often enough to not totally forget the art!

However, I've never made a hat before and wanted to make these ADORABLE owl hats for the grandkiddos, so she and I met up and she got me started on my way with them. 

This is similar to what the ones I am making will look like...

 

...and here is what I've got done so far...

Thanks, Theresa, for helping me out!  :)   And I hope your daughter gets home safely!  (While we were at Panera she got a text saying her daughter's plane was being delayed due to weather.)  :(

So now I have ANOTHER project in the works!  LOL  That's okay.  It's small enough that it makes a good "take-along" project when I have appointments, etc.  :)  

One can never have enough fabric or projects!  LOL

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!  :)

Loretta

Getting "Stoned"...

Quote for the Day:

"I'm picturing what it's like every time you renovate. 

There's a big hole in the wall and two paramedics."
~"Jill Taylor" in Home Improvement (TV Series)

Twenty-eight years ago Andy & I became parents for the first time and started on an amazing new life path together.  No longer was it just about "us" anymore.  We now had a new love in our lives.  Who could have guessed where that new path would take us, but I'm glad we took it!  We have been blessed by our children and can't imagine what life would have been like without them...or their partners...or the GRANDCHILDREN!  :)

So I want to take this opportunity to wish my dear son, Paul, and his wife, Trinity, a very Happy Birthday!!!  (Yes...they share the same birthday, though he is one year older than her!) 

We've been slowwwwwllllyyy renovating our kitchen for the last 16 months.  With Andy & I both off for the 3-day holiday weekend that just passed (Labor Day Weekend here in the USA), we decided to tackle some more of the kitchen.  We didn't get the whole current "project" done, but we managed to get it about 3/4's completed.  YAY!  

I was waffling back and forth as to whether to show what we have finished so far, or wait until we get this whole "section" completed.  But, I'm so proud of what we accomplished that I'm going to show you our progress!

There is an alcove between a chimney and the door to the wrap-around porch where the stove sits...

We decided to "brick" it in using Airstone.  It was slow going at first because the floor is un-level (our house was built in 1927 and there is nothing level anymore!), but once we got past the first couple of rows and I got into the "swing" of it, it started going faster.  Also, in the beginning, I was doing it by myself because Andy was working on finishing up an area of beadboard around the cabinets.  Once he finished that area, he started helping me by cutting the stones that needed cutting and then I was able to just concentrate on the actual "laying" of the brick/stone.

Note the shims...the valiant attempt to start out level!  LOL

After working on this project Sunday afternoon, all of Monday, and Tuesday evening after Andy got off of work, this is what it looks like now...



Ta-da!!!  I love how it's looking!!!  There are some beautiful stone houses in Fairmont, WV, that I drool over every time I'm in that town.  I LOVE them!  As we were working on this project, I told Andy that I feel like I finally have my "stone" house!  :)  At least this is as close as I'll ever get to owning one!  :)

Here's a close-up for ya...

It looks and feels just like real stone! 

My body is sore beyond belief from working on this project (lots of kneeling, bending, and up and down the ladder), but it has definitely been worth it.  We have to finish the area up near the ceiling on this wall and then do 2 sides of the chimney before we can call this area "done", but we hope to make another big dent in the project...and possibly even finish this part up... this coming weekend.  :)



Loretta

It's the Little Things...

Quote for the Day:

"We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot foresee."

~Marian Wright Edelman

Erin, Dale and Sara are coming home for Christmas, so we are looking at how we can get some of the kitchen renovation materials that are currently sitting in the entry way and dining room out of the way as much as possible.  It's one thing for us to live "around" them, but they take up so much space that when you have company, they really decrease your amount of available space.  :(   Plus, we need to make a space to put up the Christmas tree!  :D

We are going to try to go ahead and put up the wall cabinets that will go on the opposite wall of the kitchen which will not only get them out of the entry way, but also provide us immediately with additional storage.  That's a good thing!  :)

In the meantime, today we attached the rest of the hardware to the cabinets that have already been installed since the end of May!  :)

I love the antiqued bronze pulls...they remind of of what you would find on a drawer in an old office, library, or hardware store!   :)

Close up of lower cabinets...

Close up of wall cabinets...

Don't they look GREAT???  I LOVE them!

After installing the hardware, we went through the old drawer-full of plastic lids and pared it down to fit the current drawer, which is much smaller.  We had a lot of lids that had lost their containers, so we ended up throwing out about 1/2 of a garbage bagful of orphan plastic lids.  So now we have removed 3 more of the drawers that were sitting in the dining room...(1 drawer had the plastic lids but we had it sitting on top of two empty drawers so we wouldn't have to bend over as much to get things in and out of it.)

I did my coupon shopping today at Walgreen's and Rite Aid and got some very good deals for my money!  :)

At Walgreen's, I got $56.34 worth of product, paid $33.25 out-of-pocket, got $32.00 back in Register Rewards, so all of this only cost me $1.25!!  :)

Walgreen's...

At Rite Aid, I got $58.59 worth of product, paid $5.35 out-of-pocket, got $11.99 back in +Up Rewards and SCR's, making this a $6.64 money-maker for me!  :)

Rite Aid...

Loretta

Updates On Various Things In My Life...

Quote for the Day:

 "He who laughs last probably didn't get the joke."
---Unknown 

Well, well, well...where to start...
There really is no "beginning" and "end" to this post...just little tidbits of things going on in my life right now...

Let's start with this one...

My niece is getting married in just under THREE WEEKS and while I was off of work this past week on a staycation, one of the things that was on my "to do" list was to go shopping for an outfit to wear to the wedding.  Most of my wardrobe is made up of casual clothes since I really don't go anywhere that requires more than that.  Plus, my weight has fluctuated so much over the last several years, that it seems like every season I have to buy a completely new wardrobe.  :(  Not good.  :(  I have the two dresses that I wore at my own kids' weddings, but they seem a little more "fancy" than I want to wear to this wedding.  And, besides, wearing a dress would require struggling with pantyhose and wearing heels...both of which I'm not sure my back could handle right now.  I was thinking more of black slacks with a nice blouse or blouse/jacket combo.

Yesterday, I was at Kohl's to return an item and decided to try on 2 blouses that I saw.  One looked great on me, except that I was between sizes in it...one size was too tight in the sleeves and the next size up looked like I was swimming in it.  :(  The second blouse looked good on the hanger, but terrible, with a capital "T" on me!  Ugh!!  

This morning the light bulb came on in my head that both the dresses that I had worn to my kids' weddings had dressy jackets with them!  I could pair one of the jackets with a white blouse and black pants.  However, after trying both jackets on, I decided that I didn't like the way they fit now.  :(  

BUT...and that is a very big BUT...I did spy a red rayon shirt/blouse in my closet that still fit.  Paired with a white, lacy shell and black pants that I already have and voila...I have me an outfit for the wedding!  AND at no additional cost!  Double win!  :)

Bring on the WEDDING!!!   This old lady is READY to par-tay!!!  :D


Next item up for discussion...
Have you ever thought about doing something, planned for it, dreamed of it, wanted it...only to be REALLY disappointed with the outcome when you finally did it? 

Ever wonder why I haven't yet posted pictures of the finished, bound and washed whole-cloth quilt even though it's been done for a few weeks now???  Well...I'm just really disappointed in what it looks like.

Yeah...that's it.

Since washing out the blue markings basically, it looks like one big blob of white.  :(  The center medallion doesn't show up AT ALL!  :(  I'm really disappointed in it.  I really should have done the quilting in a colored or variegated thread so the design would show up better.

I've been so disappointed in this quilt, that I haven't even put it on our bed to use.  I've had it folded up on a quilt rack with the BACK side showing.  

At least the back has something interesting to look at.  I really love the black and white toile fabric.

Anyway...so much for that quilt.  I spent 9 months hand quilting it only to be disappointed in the outcome.  However, I did learn a valuable lesson...I actually LIKE to see the stitching in my quilts!  In the past I have done everything I could to make my stitches virtually invisible.  But no more!  I want to see the stitching and the design!

Based on that nugget of information, I am using a variegated thread on my current quilt...and here are some close-ups of that stitching...

I'm really liking the way this quilt is turning out!  I loved the top before I started the hand quilting, and I'm REALLY liking the hand quilting on this one!  I hope the recipient loves it as much as I do!  :)   Also, because the stitching is not as dense as the whole-cloth quilt was, this one is moving right along!  :)  YAY!  I love it when it goes quickly! 


Okay...on to the next item of business...
Andy & I *did* get back to the kitchen renovation... at least a little bit this weekend.  We got some more beadboard paneling cut and ready to attach to the wall.  (It didn't actually get "attached" yet, but at least it is cut and ready!  LOL)  And we started putting the hardware on the cabinets that are already installed. 

Let me be perfectly clear here...this has been no easy feat!!!  It is a true pain in the you-know-where trying to get these pulls installed.  The drill bit that came with the positioning guide is too small...as is all the others we tried using.  Except for one...which is the right size, but chews up the wood horribly so we can't use it.  Instead, we have to use the next size smaller and work it around till, hopefully, we have made the hole large enough for the pulls, but not so big that they show around the pull.  :(   Why, oh why, can't ANYTHING be easy?

But...we have two attached so far, and hopefully, can get the last two pulls attached and then the knobs on the door fronts.  The knobs should go much easier since they don't sit down inside the wood like the pulls do.  Keep your fingers crossed for us on that one...LOL.


Now...the final item of discussion for today...my couponing this week...


Walgreen's...

I got $35.17 worth of product, paid $13.07 out-of-pocket, got $15 back in Register Rewards, making this a $1.83 moneymaker for me!

Rite Aid...

I got $27.14 worth of product, paid $2.13 out-of-pocket, got $10.38 back in +Up Rewards, making this a $8.25 moneymaker for me!  :)

Thanks for stopping by!  Please leave me a comment to let me know you were here!  I appreciate each and every one of my visitors!

Loretta

Update on the Kitchen Renovation...

Quote for the Day:

"The trouble with quotes on the Internet is that it is difficult to 

discern whether or not they are genuine."

~Abraham Lincoln

Slowly but surely...and I mean VERY slowly, but surely...we are getting some kitchen renovation done.  

Andy has installed all the cabinets in the recessed area on the south wall of the kitchen.  We have placed the countertop on top of the base cabinets, but have not yet fastened it down as Andy is still trying to figure out exactly what he is going to do with the approximately 4" to the left of the cabinets.  

I would like to figure out a way to build an open shelf next to the top cabinets so there is an area to store baking sheets vertically instead of using up space in the base cabinets to store them.  So he is "thinking on these things" and figuring out how to work it out....even though I have given him my thoughts on how to do it.  The problem lies in that there is a brick chimney there and attaching anything to it is nearly impossible so you have to put boards next to it and attach them to the floor and ceiling with brackets...then attach your "wall" to those.

But...this is what we have accomplished so far...

This is the bank of cabinets that sit into a little recessed area between a brick chimney to the left and a wall on the right.  Some of the cabinet doors still need to be attached, but just look at all that storage in that tall pantry cabinet!  WOOHOO!  :)
I also want Andy to reverse the swing of the door on that left-hand cabinet.  It is that area between the left-hand side of the upper cabinets and the chimney that I want a little storage "nook".  

Also, since these cabinets are going to be used for dishes instead of food (we have a small walk-in pantry for food storage), we are going to have a shelf cut to fit the upper portion of the pantry cabinet.  It only came with 3 shelves, but we think using the 3 in the bottom portion and 1 in the top will be just the right storage for us.

If you are wondering why the iron is sitting on the counter...well...you use an iron to attach matching laminate to the ends of the countertop to give it a "finished" look.  I have done that, so I guess I can put the iron away now...LOL.

And today...I am using the counter for the first time...

*big smiles*!!!

If you think that crock pot looks old...it is!  It was a wedding gift to us...making it 29 years old in about 10 days!  :):):):) 

I have 2 newer crock pots...an oblong one that I like to use when I cook a whole chicken or long piece of meat, and a small round crock pot for when I'm doing "small" dishes...usually desserts.  HOWEVER...this brown one is the one I prefer to use the most.  It cooks the slowest and, I think, the best of the three....maybe because I've had years of experience with this one so I "know" it the best.   This one is from before the time of removable crocks, though, so this one has to be washed out by hand, but it cleans up easily enough.


I realize that I haven't done a book recommendation lately, so I'll throw a couple in this post...

Remember Beautiful Boy?  Well...I just finished reading the son's account called "Tweak:  Growing up on Methamphetamine" by Nic Sheff.  OMG...RIVETING!    I definitely recommend both books, but I would also recommend reading the father's account first and you will see how the two books intermingle...the story from the non-addict's view and from the addict's view.

I have also recently finished reading "Facing Down Evil:  Life as an FBI Hostage Negotiator" by Clint Van Zandt.  Excellent book!  Lots of interesting "inside" information about some very public cases in this book.  He gives us "the rest of the story"...the side we don't hear about on the news.

Loretta

Some Decluttering...

Quote for the Day:

"Even if you're on the right track, 

you'll get run over if you just sit there."
- Will Rogers

Andy informed me yesterday that I hadn't updated my blog since the 7th, so I thought I'd get my butt in gear.  (Andy reads my blog to keep up on what is going on in our lives...LOL.)   :P

So...here I am to update Andy and all my readers with what is going on here at our house...

First off...this picture was taken the night before we left for Georgia, and shows the progress we've made on the kitchen so far...

Sorry for the poor quality of the picture, but it was taken with my phone because my camera was already packed for the trip.  The pantry and wall cabinets have been attached to the wall, but the base cabinets and countertop were just set in there to get the "feel" of how they are going to fit together.

Have you tried one of these, yet???

McDonald's frozen strawberry lemonade...MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!  I tried one when we were traveling back from Georgia and they are GOOOOOOOD!!!  So today after my chiropractor's visit, I swung threw the drive thru and got me one since it has been record-breaking HOT this week....but really, any excuse will do!  LOL

Today I did some decluttering in the bathroom....

Since we have a pedestal sink, we keep toiletries in the bottom of the antique china cabinet that we use as a linen closet in the bathroom.  (We keep towels and wash clothes in the upper part where the glass doors are.  The bottom part has solid wood doors.)   This is what it looked like inside the bottom doors...

You know what I'm talking about....everybody has a place where they keep their toiletries.  Like I said, most people keep their bathroom "stuff" under the sink.

I went through and discarded a lot of opened items that were never going to get used and other odds and ends that had gotten shoved in there...

...then I rounded up some more baskets to use to help organize things...and now it looks like this...

I wish the bottom shelf was "taller" than it is...many bottles, like shampoo, etc., won't fit standing up, so I had to put taller items on the top shelf and shorter ones on the bottom...limiting the way I could organize things.  

When Andy saw it he immediately said "oh no...how will I find anything with it so 'neat' "?  LOL

That's all for now, Folks.  Have a great day and a great weekend!  I'm hoping we can get some more work done on the kitchen and manage to stay cool in this heat this weekend!

Loretta