It's Starting to Look Like a Kitchen!

We started with our great wood cabinets, which you can see in the picture above.

The painters have been working hard on the cabinets, staining and clear coating them, and they look fabulous. They had to take off all the doors, pull out all the shelves, and get all the shelves together, before taping off the insides of the cabinets. It took them an entire week to prep the cabinets, stain them, coat them, sand them, and then coat them again. You don't realize how many pieces there are in the cabinets until they are all spread out. When they were working on the doors, they hung them all up individually so that they could dry without touching anything. Molly said that her room looked like the big store room of closet doors in Monsters, Inc. You can see what she means in the picture below:


The other exciting thing that happened last week was the installation of the soapstone counter tops. They are so cool! We had this huge slab for the island, so it took three guys to bring it in and lift it up.



Now, it has all come together and looks like this:



Next stop, interior paint!

A New Sewer Line

Finally, the big thing on Jake's list is under way. We desperately needed a new sewer line -- the old one was getting crushed by the roots of a big tree and had almost completely collapsed in the street. It is not cheap, however, since they need to dig up most of the street to get to the main sewer line and then repave 5 feet in each direction. Of course, we have had the mildest summer on record and they chose today -- the hottest day of the entire year with temperatures in the high 90s -- to start digging up the street. Equally painfully, they waited until the first day of school to block off the street and make a big mess. All we really care about, though, is that they get it done! We can't wait to not need to rout out our sewer line every 2-3 months, usually at 10 o'clock at night!

By the Sweat of Our Brows

The exterior of the casita is all painted by the sweat of our brows. My mom came out and stayed with us for a week to help me by taking care of the kids and running errands and stuff, but she went above and beyond the call of duty by helping to paint too. The regular painters are there right now and they couldn't believe my mom out there painting -- our work got their seal of approval.

The building looks really nice. The exterior is the same color as the house. I painted most of it with a roller and brush, so I am now intimately acquainted with it. The underside of the eaves is the same as the trim color on the main house, and the green and brown will be the same on the main house as well. It took forever to do that green and brown trim -- the darker colors just don't cover as well. We all think it looks really great, however. The brown posts and beams really look sharp. My painting clothes now have many colors of paint on them!

Exterior Paint -- What a Difference!

I know I am late in posting this blog -- we were gone for a week and then I have been spending the last week working hard on the house. The painters are here, and they spent last week painting the exterior of the house. As you can see, the paint makes the house look awesome! The tiles really pop and the colors match well. The painters have moved on to the inside -- I'll post the pictures of the staining of the cabinets in progress soon. All I can say right now is that it is a really messy process, with stain getting everywhere. Also, you can't really appreciate how many doors and drawers are in your cabinets until they are spread out drying everywhere in the house! The painters are really nice guys, who are working super hard to make everything look great.

I have been working hard painting the exterior of the casita. I'll post some pictures soon on that as well. I have also spent a lot of time finishing the trim in the old section of the house. We chose to put up craftsman trim in the new section (see previous post), so I needed to make the old section match. Fortunately the contractor ended up doing some of the old section, so all I needed to do was finish the hall and do the trim around the doors and windows in the living room and dining room. It's lucky I only had to do a little, because I am really slow at it. Molly took a picture of me taking down the old trim around the front door, which you can see below. In fact, Molly took all the pictures posted in this blog.



As a little extra info, the big patch of drywall next to the door is where we had to retape the drywall after fixing all the dry rot around the front door. Also, at the right in the picture you can see the terrible louvered doors that they installed on my laundry closet the first time around -- we have much better doors now.