Kitchen: before & after...

It dawned on me that I never showed you what the kitchen looked like when we bought the condo, so I thought I would show you the before and (almost) after...

before...

and after...

we've opened up the room a lot by getting rid of the peninsula and adding the island. We took out the existing pantry cabinet and shifted things down, opening up a lot of kitchen space. I'm excited to see the completed kitchen with the pendant lights hanging over the island and the new floor in, but it's already a huge improvement over the too small and dated kitchen that was there before.

Sorry it didn't occur to me to show you the before until now...

More kitchen pictures...

Here are a few more pictures of the kitchen and what it looked like soon after I got home from work. This morning hubby put the knobs on all the cabinets and drawers, can't wait to get home and see them. :)

I'm so excited that I am about to be cooking again, I have been busy perusing all kinds of cookbooks, looking for just the right "first" meal to cook in the new kitchen. More updates to come.

Counter top installation in progress...

My husband is home today and is supervising the counter top installation. He sent me this picture of the progress so far and said that the blue flecks in the granite look great with the wall color. I can't wait to get home and see it for real. But for now, I thought I would share this picture with you. (it's not great since it was taken with his cell phone).

Countertops go in tomorrow...

need I say more??!! :)

Just earned another $50

this time from Vindale (see link to the right). I tried the Sham wow towels and that is what put me over the edge to earn the $50, then did a review of them. I did not like them at all. I thought they had a weird texture and didn't clean up all that well. I was sincerely disappointed. I thought they were going to be great! Vince, albeit extremely annoying, makes them look like a miracle product. Oh well, live and learn. Ha! If you have to yell that much about how great your product is it's probably not that great! (shrugging my shoulders).

Can you help??? Please!

The elementary school I went to is in desperate need of new playground equipment. Some of the equipment they have has been there since the school opened in 1958!! Earlier today we were in 4th place, but now we've moved up to first, by a small number. If you could I would greatly appreciate it if you wouldn't mind taking a minute to vote for Westgate Elementary. My future kids thank you too! :)

http://projects.kaboom.org/voting/elections/video_2010

If you missed last night's Evening Edition, Check out Westgate's Story. http://www.king5.com/on-tv/evening-magazine/Westgate-Elementary-trying-to-win-playground-88873597.html

Have a great day and thank you!

Out of control...

Wow! I was just looking at my spreadsheet that tracks my survey earnings and so far this year I have earned $709.25!!! Holy cow! That's more than my husband is making every 2 weeks on his reduced salay of minimum wage!!! I have been very diligent about clicking on EVERY opportunity that comes in and trying them out, a lot of them haven't panned out, but at least it was only a 15 second time investment. I also had a really great one thru mysurvey that resulted in a $50 payout, I love those.

We're muddling through our kitchen remodel and have hit more than a few snags, but I think we have most of them ironed out now. We are having our counter tops installed next Tuesday and we found a local place that will install slab granite and do all the prep work for $2347.56!!! (If you are in the Seattle area and looking for granite, check out http://www.piuskb.com/) We are super excited! Then we still have to install the appliances and the flooring to go, but once the appliances are in at least I can cook and bake again! I can't wait to post pictures of it all done! I'll keep you posted!

Have a great day! It's a beautiful one here!

Kitchen updates...

Well, it's been a week or so since I last updated you on the progress in the kitchen. It's been a little slower going than I would have liked, but we are still making progress. We've both been sick and therefore trying to not push it too hard, we decided that it would be better to take care of ourselves rather than push the kitchen and possibly make mistakes. So, without further ado, here's a couple of pictures of the progress...

We still have 2 doors to put on the back of the island, but we came up short by 4 hinges so another trip to Ikea is in our future. We're about ready for counter tops...the problem? We haven't decided what we want or what we can afford at the moment. With DH's salary still drastically cut back and we're not sure when it will go back to his regular pay, we are hesitant to put big money into the counters and floor at the moment. Does anyone have any good ideas for economical solutions for now? We've saved a lot of money so far by doing this work ourselves and it's been pretty fun. I've learned a lot about home renovations and it's been great.

This week is going to be another slow week for getting stuff done, I'll be out on Wednesday and Thursday as I have to have a colonoscopy and upper endoscopy done. No fun! Hoping by the weekend to be back up and running on getting this stuff done.

Make it a great day!

Tax return received, partially...

We received our tax refund from the state of California...we have to file that darn thing since DH works in California and lives there part time. That $1,209 was a nice surprise to see in the checking account this morning as we didn't think we would be receiving it for several weeks still. Now if we would just receive the federal refund which has the $8,000 tax credit with it for DH buying our current condo. That would really help us get through this tough time while DH's salary has been slashed back to minimum wage and we are bleeding money with the kitchen remodel. Speaking of...not much has happened since the pictures the other night, we were busy last night and have plans tonight, but hopefully we can get a lot done on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Hope everyone else is getting their tax refunds back soon too and not having to pay. :) It's almost spring, my favorite time of year, I'm hoping it is a beautiful one.

Some kitchen progress....YAY!!!

As promised, here are a couple of pictures of the progress in our kitchen so far. We've run in to a few snags along the way, but we think we have them figured out and are ready to move forward with the rest of the cabinet install. The appliances are there too, just waiting to be installed, so once we get there it shouldn't be long until we have a functioning kitchen again.

The first of the cabinet frames are in place...

And now they have doors on them...

DH is making another trek to Ikea today to exchange some stuff that the designer
mis-ordered, but we're making really good progress now that we have the system all figured out. We should have the rest of the cabinets installed by the end of the week and can start putting stuff away soon! We can't wait to get things organized and put away and stop living in a constant mess. Surprisingly we have really been enjoying installing the cabinets together and are finding that we are working pretty well on this project together. Very little frustration, so that's a good thing. I'll keep you all posted with more pictures as things progress...

The kitchen is painted...

Yes!! Finally we have the kitchen all painted and are getting ready to install the cabinets. We painted this past weekend and are moving the vent for the stove today, then the cabinets will go in over the next week and hopefully, I'll be cooking a meal this coming weekend. I'm not going to go out and buy the groceries quite yet, don't want to jinx it. :) I took pictures of the new color on the walls, but forgot to download them yet, so hopefully I can add the pictures this evening when I get home. It's a nice soft blue color and the rest of the walls in the living/dining room are a soft brown color. The cabinets are a medium brown. I think it's going to look really great when it's all put together.