D E T A I L S & A C C E N T S

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i don't quite have everything organized or unpacked or bought...but here's few little details of some things i'm pretty jazzed about so far.

an amazing idea seen on a favorite blog remodelista.com...a gorgeous Aalto vase used as a utensil holder.

designed by Finnish architect Aalvar Aalto in 1936,
the Aalto vase requires three separate glass blows to create

this sink is 9 inches deep!

all the plates are white...but we're thinking yellow might be our "accent" color...looks great!

another stolen idea...this time from doorsixteen.com

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T H E B I G U N P A C K

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this weekend the moment i had been waiting for finally arrived. unpacking 15 or so boxes from my old kitchen into my new, fabulous kitchen. fun right? there were moments of fun...like putting pots & pans into their drawers and the silverware into the custom made drawer dividers (a great idea thanks to diywithadd.com.  more fun included the vertical storage for sheetpans, cutting boards, etc....i'm soooo glad we did this.
the no fun part was unearthing some things that i really liked that were in the old kitchen, but just don't fit, looks-wise and size-wise, into the new.

these babies are 2 sheet pans deep...you wouldn't believe the amount of stuff in here!

that little light is our wifi which is tucked in the back of this cabinet.

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E A T

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i still need to unpack all the dishes and put stuff on the shelves...i have lots of "styling" to do. chris was excited to get these vintage letters up...i just had to post about it. we bought these ages ago...before we even started planning this kitchen. we started with the A which we bought randomly on atlantic avenue. then chris came up with the idea to get an E and a T...and then he was on a mission...practically obsessed with finding the right size, color, and font to make the complete set. not an easy task! then we planned the kitchen (and not around fitting these letters), renovated, and voila...the moment of truth, they fit! what a statement, huh?

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F I L L I N G T H E V O I D

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the peninsula is in! our plan was always to install a custom restaurant style table at the end of the cabinet run by the window...so we always had a nice amount of space reserved for that. we had a restaurant supply place in the Bowery make the base of the table so with the butcherblock top (bought from dykes cut at m&k) attached, it would be the same height as the countertop. the height was slightly off so chris had to do some adjusting with a plunge router....thank god for handy husbands! the table is on wheels (chris would put everything on wheels if he could) and can be locked in-place or moved around to suit the need.
now we have a nice place right here in the kitchen to eat, prep, gaze out the window, use a laptop, read the paper etc.

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F I N A L L Y F L O A T I N G

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this is a pretty momentous occasion...the floating shelves re finally in! after much procrastinating and thinking "let's try and make these ourselves" we finally came to our senses (and ran out of time) and hired our brooklyn cabinet guys (k&f kitchen cabinets) to take a crack at some gigantic shelves. 3 layers of furniture grade plywood later and these babies are 2 inches thick! now you know why we had to put in such crazy strong brackets!

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N I C E !

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the moldings are pretty much complete now. pretty late in the game our architects had this nice idea of adding this detail under the windows. it's amazing what a simple thing can make such a huge difference! it looked kind of incomplete without it but now it mimics something that is somewhat original to the house...in the demolition something similar but a bit more ornate (and gross) was discover under pieces of plywood. also all the base molding are installed and match the height of all the kitchen cabinet kick plates ...another one of our fabulous architect's idea...love their eye for detail!

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A T T H E S H O P

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we stopped in at K&F, our local cabinet makers shop just a 5 minute walk from our house (not to be confused with our mid-west shop in north dakota). They're working on lots of projects for us. on their list: custom bathroom vanity and bathroom storage unit, caesarstone shelves for the bathroom (as well as vanity toppers), and the big beefy kitchen floating shelves. they were also nice enough to cut a piece of butcher block for our "restaurant supply style" peninsula table. we are so lucky to have had THE nicest people working on all aspects of our renovation. Jason at K&F is in close competition for first place with Mentor our contractor for the nicest of nice guys award...jason has the advantage since he gave me a bottle of wine on the first day...but Mentor has the advantage of spending hours upon hours in our home.

8 ft floating shelves in progress....almost 2 inches thick!

butcher block being cut on their new shop saw

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P R O G R E S S

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i'm late to post the 'action' from earlier this week.
the upper cabinets went in along with the microwave that is above the stove.
our contractor kindly covered all the painted cabinet edges in blue tape so nothings gets scratched while work is going on, and speaking of blue, the floor is currently coated in a blue waterproof membrane and waiting for the cork to be installed.
the backsplash tile has been installed but not grouted.
our countertop was templated on monday and is being installed on saturday...can't wait!
last week new windows went in...after alot of drama and waiting i was a little disappointed with them but after everything is done and trimmed and gorgeous i'm sure they'll be fine. anythings better than the  "1972 brown aluminum,  clouded over glass, wont stay open with a 2x4 underneath"  windows that were in there before!

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K I T C H E N P R O G R E S S 2

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the progress continues! the new mudjob/subfloor is in and well as the first phase of taping/spackling.

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L I V I N G I N I T

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It seems like we've been at it for so long already...but when i just typed 2.5 weeks i think it's great progress! I guess when you're living in the middle of a major renovation and it's filth, it gets old fast. this little kitchen/bathroom reno has taken up our entire house! we thought we'd have our downstairs bedrooms as our safe dust-free haven but then our plumber told us he had a lot of work to do in our large bedroom closet which is where alot of plumbing runs through. so the entire closet had to be emptied into the second bedroom which was packed to the ceiling with stuff already. this is also where our 2 cats are locked up during the day.

so downstairs is mess.

upstairs, where the actual work is happening is a wreck. with our dining room and living room right outside the kitchen this has become a real work zone with appliance storage, central command/work table (with tools & plans), 2x4 storage, the plumbers entire van load of pipes, fittings, doo dads, connectors, and ominous looking tools...etc.

i am learning great patience in this process...and even with the mess i am grateful that we can even do this ;-)

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W E E K E N D A C T I O N

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we had a full house on saturday with 2 plumbers and 2 electricians all working with a 10 foot space of each other. luckily no fights broke out (just some rude comments).

with them here saturday it meant that for about 8 hours straight on sunday we cleaned up after them. the place was a complete mess...pieces of pipe, chunks of wood, wood shavings, old outlets, and scraps of wire all ending up all over the floors or within our joists. so we vacuumed everything out, replaced some insulation (recycled denim!)...and felt much better.

sorry guys ... my walls are not your garbage cans. i was so infuriated to spend an entire day on this that i put a not-so-subtle sign up to tell these guys to clean up after themselves. really?

on the bright side, we did buy a new shop-vac which made things a little more manageable. no more earplugs!

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