The Big Debut!

Before I show you the kitchen, lets take a stroll back down memory lane and see what it used to look like to refresh your memory. (It will be a part of mine for a long, long time).

I hated how the cabinets went all the way to the ceiling. If you were to open them and see what we put on the top shelf, it was pretty much nothing, or just extra storage stuff that collected a lot of dust. I could never reach it, even with a stool.

The drawers didn't have rollers. It was just wood rubbing on wood and "wood-dust" would get into all sorts of things like my measuring cups. I got really used to re-rinsing.

The grout in the pink tile was permanently stained with everything you can imagine from its past. I could never get it clean. I will run far away if I see tiled countertops in a potential house again.

Also, because we had to put child-proof locks on our bottom cabinets, it somehow caused the cabinets to never be able to fully shut. Probably something to do with the old hinges. As you can see from the photo above, all of them are ajar. But really, they never shut well anyways.

Probably my #1 least favorite thing in the kitchen was the sink. It too, never looked clean. It was an old cast iron sink and everything stained it: spaghetti sauce, juice, blueberries, anything with color, it stained it that way for weeks. It literally had to be bleached to become white again. It was also really small and shallow.

This tall cabinet space used to be a pantry cabinet I think. But the previous owners took the lower cabinets out and put the microwave and garbage can there instead. I actually kinda liked having the garbage can out of the way and able to cover it up with the curtain (especially when Emmett finally discovered it).

Free standing stove, and dishwasher. A.K.A, countertops.

Also, the cabinets you see above the dishwasher is the only space I had for pantry/canned/packaged foods. It was very small.

Anyways, enough of memory lane.

Without further ado...here she is!

2 pantry cabinets on either side of the fridge.

Mike installed undermount lighting under the cabinets.

And I got a big beautiful sink that can hold dishes for days. ;)

Mike (with the help of several family members and friends) did all of the work and I couldn't be prouder. There were only a few times I doubted him (mostly in the electrical department). But he did an AWESOME job!

So was it worth it? Definitely. It was a dirty, dirty job (to the ENTIRE HOUSE). And there were times when we asked ourselves "why did we decide to do this?" But I'm sooo glad I don't have my old kitchen anymore. You just have to suffer through a month or so of torture to get there. We still aren't completely finished yet. We still have to do baseboards, windowsills and a little bit of painting, but as far as the kitchen set up goes, its completely done!

We had a lot of help along the way. Neighbors, family, and friends offered tools, their muscles, dinner, and their time on multiple occasions and most without being asked. We appreciated it so much!

Now, who wants to come over for dinner?

A New Floor

My mom has been asking me when I'm going to post pictures of our new floor. So since Emmett is finally in bed, and my husband is gussin around in the kitchen I think I finally have a moment.

We don't think the linoleum was very old. Probably no more than 10 years. I'm guessing when the previous owners were picking out color, they probably tried to find something that would match with the pink tile countertops that used to be there, and since they didn't want to conquer this horrible project of getting rid of them, they decided to pick out linoleum color that would somewhat go together and bear with it. (Until they moved and passed it on to the next crazy owners! ha!)

You might not be able to tell very well from the camera, but it was whitish gray, and had a very slight shade of pink in it.

Yeah, I loved it about as much as I loved the pink countertops.

This was a good day:

Backer-board is laid and ready to tile:

Mike's brother Nick was in Utah for the weekend, and offered to help lay tile with him on Saturday. They worked hard for about 12 hours all day.

After its laid, it has to dry for about 24 hours, until the cement underneath is hard. Then you have to grout the lines.

On Monday morning, my sister and her husband Nate offered to come down from Saratoga Springs and help. So Nate and Mike grouted the tile for about 6 hours. Laying tile is a lot of work, but you save yourself SO much money doing it yourself.

I'm sure neither of these guys really wanted to spend their Memorial Day weekend helping Mike lay tile, but I hope they know how much it helped!!! It saved Mike hours and hours of time down on his hands and knees, had he been alone!

Here are the pictures I took Monday night after the grouting was finished.

The blank spaces in the floor are where some cabinets are going to go. And you can see we are still missing baseboards... All in due time...

It looks so good!

It still needs to be sealed, and a few other details, but for the most part its done!

He Fought a Good Fight

This week we had the sad opportunity to say goodbye to one of Mike's best friends, Ryan Hess by attending his funeral in Star Valley, WY on Thursday. You might remember the post A Friend in Need I wrote last summer after Ryan was diagnosed with cancer. He fought a good fight, but after fighting it for almost 1 year, he finally succumbed to the disease and peacefully passed away last week. Ryan was 30 years old. He left behind a very brave and sweet wife, Margie, and 2 cute little kids. Margie has kept up his blog Team Ryan Hess since his diagnosis.

Ryan was one of the 5 or so best friends Mike grew up with in Star Valley. Mike is so lucky to have grown up with friends who are as close as brothers to him.

Here are a few pictures that I went digging for on our computer that I found of Mike and Ryan.

A happy, successful fishing trip the 2 took together when they were about 18.

High School hunks. 1998.

L to R: Mike Gleue, James Barnes, Bryan Jensen, Levi Scott, Ryan Hess

On a drive with Ryan up the canyon in SV. And getting successfully stuck in the snow. Spring 2007?

Have you ever seen 2 guys so happy to be stuck?

James Barnes and Mike took a trip to Tucson, AZ to visit Ryan shortly after starting his first round of Chemo. August 2009.

A final goodbye. March 2010.

Mike served as a pallbearer along with 3 friends, Ryan's brother, and bro-in laws.

L to R: Bryan Jensen, Levi Scott, Mike Gleue, James Barnes, Ben Barnes, Jason Porter

A Splash of Paint

Things are moving right along in the kitchen department. I finally have some progress to show at least!

There was a time when our kitchen walls were painted like this. A simple light beige color.

Awhile ago I was reading in an interior decorating magazine about painting your house. The advice when choosing paint was: "Be brave, not beige". The magazine was trying to encourage its readers to be bold when choosing colors for your house. Bright, fun colors to brighten up a room, not boring beige colors that won't stand out or show personality. I've had that in the back of my mind when thinking about decorating our house, and most recently our kitchen. Well, about 2 months ago when we started this project we went to the store and picked out some paint (this was before our decision to tear out the cabinets). I decided I wanted a mustard-yellow color for my walls.

To give you an idea of what I was thinking:

Well this what it turned out looking like:

It turned out SCHOOL BUS ORANGE. It was hideous. So much for bravery. (and if your're in the market for orange paint I have a full can waiting for you for free!)

So we went back to Lowe's and decided to go in a different direction and got this color:

This time we actually painted the whole kitchen, not just 1/2 a wall. You might think its a lot like the original but its actually much darker. I thought my walls looked like chocolate pudding. I was disappointed once again. (ditto on free chocolate paint!)

Now lets fast forward to the next chain of events with our walls.

And here they are finished!

Yes, call me crazy, but for paint color I went back to the original! It just so happened to go perfectly with my new countertops and cabinets we picked out.

You'll notice the bottom isn't painted, thats because the cabinets are going to cover it up.

I know it doesn't look like much, but progress is being made! Mike is working on the kitchen every spare minute of every day. He cleared the floors down to the bare bottom, and we hope to tile this weekend!

Kitchen Update, or Lack Thereof

I wish I had a lot of new stuff to show this week of our kitchen. Unfortunately though, the only thing I have to show is the misery that it entails.

We demolished our kitchen 12 days ago. We thought for sure we'd be finished painting and starting on tiling the floor by now. But as most house projects go, it always takes a lot longer than you think. Part of that is because Mike is doing ALL the work himself. And he is learning a lot of it as he goes. One of those is electric work. He refuses to pay someone to do work that his two hands are perfectly capable of doing. I appreciate his Mr. Fix-It talents however one thing neither of us anticipated was how long it would take to learn it and maneuver around the maze and struggles of a 60 year old house. We are re-wiring all sorts of new things. Light switches, moving the oven to an opposite wall, moving the sink-disposal switch to the wall, instead of inside the cabinet where it used to be, ect. All in all it will be much more functional, however its a pain to have to do it. It still isn't quite finished yet (almost!) but in the meantime, he has started working on the walls. Mudding and sanding every night until its smooth and ready to paint. This is something Mike knows how to do well, as he did the walls in Emmett's room, and also the walls in the hallway project. Both look great. So if our lights don't turn on, and our tiled floor is mis-matched at least we'll have great looking walls!

Its been an interesting 12 days. Going into it I said the one thing that will keep me sane is by keeping the rest of the house clean and organized all the time. I'm the kindof person that gets stressed and uncomfortable when my space is neither of those. I don't think I would say I'm a neat freak, because my house gets messy plenty. But it doesn't mean I like it. Here's the problem that I didn't realize would occur: ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO KEEP CLEAN. Dust and dirt fly everywhere. I dust it up, and the next day its back again (after an evenings worth of work in the kitchen). Also, walking in the kitchen adds dirt and debris to your feet, then it gets tracked into the carpet and the rest of the house as you go, and since our dining table is still in the kitchen right now, it gets tracked a lot. I vacuum every single day. If I didn't I think we'd need to replace our 2 year old carpet by the time we're done, its that dirty. And since the dining table is still in the kitchen, it also gets covered with dirt, dust, tools, and everything else you can imagine. Not exactly sanitary for food. Emmetts high chair gets a nightly wash instead of a wash after every meal. And the few dishes that we use get stacked up in the bathroom and washed every other day. (We are using mostly paper products). I could go on and on, but I think you get the point.

Here's some pictures of the house. I'm only posting these because no one is allowed in our home until the project is over. That is unless your a kind neighbor that is coming to help my husband (thanks Grant!), or coming to offer us dinner. Because you know not much cooking is going on around here.

Our meals come from either the fridge, outside BBQ, or the microwave. The oven is not plugged in.

Clean dishes drying off.

This is our half-bath. (We have 2 bathrooms upstairs) Instead of Mike running up and down stairs into the basement to his real shop, he's adopted this as easy access to keep his tools, and other various work supplies. Obviously it isn't getting much use other than that.

As you can see not much cleanliness is going on around here. Mike is already promising this is the grand finale project in this house. (Stay tuned on that one...)

And here is one thing that does keep us happy around here. Chocolate cake.