the remaking of a kitchen

more shopping today, and these may be the thing. the bench is on its way from chicago, the others await a decision.

today was a shopping day and i think i had luck. :) friend judy and i went to the mall-o and wandered and shopped and pretended we got exercise and then had a great lunch to finish the project.
later i went furniture shopping and thought i'd found a loveseat that don would like so called him and he came over to meet me. we wandered and mumbled and noticed another loveseat and i fell in love with it and don liked it too. hopefully it will live in the house quite nicely. i found a couple of chairs too, and then found two more, so now i need to make a decision on those. should be interesting, but it's fun to feel like we might really really have furniture! whee

primer coat on the trim around the front door. lookin' good. don has been busy!

i blew it. i got all busy yesterday and mud-filled the nail holes (almost all of them) in the dining and living room baseboards and on into the hallway. then i painted some of them with primer, and probably both approaches were mistakes. not sure what i should have done, but the work was for naught. don has been sanding and washing and trying to fix.....you can still see the mess. the places that i primed will probably need to be painted all over again, and the other may be salvageable if we don't paint at all, just leave the mud. well what should i have done? the vote is still out! aaaargh

as always when the day is done it's clean up time. we could count on that happening each day when the tasks were done. what a good group of guys!

i remember saying, wow, it's all done and THEN dana and i had a conversation while don was at the hardware store. we removed the paneling from the stairway.....it still exists at the basement end, but otherwise GONE.* we will paint it and the hallways walls to match the kitchen and living room. it will look fresh and crisp to borrow some designer jargon. dana reapplied trim and filled the holes in the plaster before he left, so we just need to sand and prime and buy another can of paint. egads.

*idea borrowed from david's blog. :)

just had to add this....the kitchen with the toe-kick and trim. it is all DONE, and we lived to tell the tale.

ta-dah!!!!!!! you are viewing the apple pie in an oatmeal cookie crust that's just about to come put of the oven. yummmmy

this is a minor detail and seems major to me. the baseboard was placed around the board that anchors the rail and balusters. the wall to the right was very uneven and a championship job of mudding made it work. tomorrow tom will caulk the remaining negative space and it will be gorgeous!

the finishing touch is about to be attached to the base of the breakfront. what a difference that will make. each little step.....
to the right can be seen the breakfront with the base trim attached and to the far right is the baseboard which is now connected to the wall.

on the right is the before picture, and the left is the after. the toe-kick looks much better in its finished state. the contractor suspected i was a bit weird getting down the floor to get these shots, but it's amazing to see the improvement.

this is a wacky view of the handrail and stair leading up to the newel post and balusters. i'd just finished the painting when this was taken

the baseboards are not connected to the wall as yet, but i wanted to see how they looked in a photo. it's easier to see things in a photo than in real life. the walls are patched and painted and ready for the next act.

the neighbors reported ice on the lake today. the geese were spotted walking ON the lake, one of them limping. perhaps he/she didn't know it was frozen when attempting to land. oops

the baseboards are almost done. hurrah! the railing etc is not. boo! i discovered there were numerous areas that needed further attention and that there were several places on walls that needed mudding.....one that needed major mudding. it feels like nothing got done....by me anyway, but i guess it will be easier to carry on when i get back to it now. hopefully.

today we got moving again with don priming a bunch of baseboards after he purchased them at menards. i primed the newel post and rail as well as the handrail down to the basement. it looks better in the photo than it does in person. the primer is a bit spotty, but the paint will smooth it out and it will be gorgeous!