Details

Jay arrived Monday morning and it didn’t take him long to finish the three remaining stairs.  Nice guy and he will return in the fall to finish carpeting the bedrooms.

Bill stopped by with the extra shelves for the hutch.  He checked out the church pew that needs to have the nails removed and screws inserted to strengthen the back.  The pew is over one hundred years old and makes a great addition to the sitting area off the kitchen. My great grandfather was a Baptist preacher so this sort of fits my background.  In the dining room we have twelve wooden pew chairs with kneelers that came from the local Episcopal Church, and that is part of Larry’s background.  Maybe I should look for some vintage hymnals and we could have our guests sing for their dinner.

Tuesday I left really early for a board meeting and Larry had a Kiwanis lunch meeting.  We spent the afternoon just enjoying the peace and quiet.  Larry installed his new National Geographic weather station and I put two more shelves in the hutch and unpacked two more boxes.  Only six more boxes to go but I don’t know where any of that “stuff” is going. 

The guys will be back on Friday to try and finish up.

Austin and Christian came Thursday to start cleaning up the yard and will return again next week.  By the time we are ready to have a party to celebrate the kitchen, the yard should be looking really good.

Friday Tom arrived and began working on the shuttered door for the master bathroom.  The old swinging saloon half door that was in the bathroom is long gone…now we are going to have a real door.  Well that was the plan…we need different hardware to make it work.

Bill arrived and installed the new mirror for the downstairs guest bathroom.  Let’s just say IKEA and Bill are not the best of friends.  Some tweaking, some muttering, a few French words, and the mirror is up and Bill will return next week to fix the little booboo that happened because there were no instructions included.  It looks good though!

The church pew is now fixed and Bill says it is never going to separate again.  Three inch screws holding the back and seat together should be the answer. 

The sitting area off the kitchen is beginning to look finished, sort of.  Larry had the boys bring down the rug we originally bought for the study and when it didn’t work we rolled it up and stored it in the shop up behind the house.  It works just perfect in the new sitting area and when we get the other chair it will be a cozy area for guests to sit and relax.  I moved the three nesting wicker tables that had been in the study to the sitting area and now there is a place for guests to put glasses, cups, and plates. 

Tom is installing the base molding around the kitchen island and finishing off the trim around the slate on the fireplace and trimming out under the front door. 

Monday Larry and I headed to Seattle IKEA…shhhh…don’t tell Bill.  We stopped off in Burlington to deliver a baby bed and some baby clothes to a friend whose daughter is pregnant.

The Container Store in Bellevue had the drawer organization bins we needed for all those miscellaneous kitchen tools that you accumulate and then they seem to multiply.  Kitchen stores are one of Larry’s favorite places to shop after sporting goods stores like Bass Pro and Cabela’s. 

The goal was to get another matching chair at IKEA, a floor lamp, a few more juice glasses, and hopefully we get out the door without too much damage to our credit cards.  Well, we got the chair, no lamp, yes on the juice glasses, and Larry found a cowhide rug he liked better so the other one is going back.

Tuesday Bill stopped by to check in with us.  Tom is out for dental work and they will both return tomorrow to finish up.  Did I just say finish up?  Wow!  Beginning to think I would never happen.

Wednesday Tom finally figured out how to install the bathroom door.  It’s not easy when the walls are not plumb, straight, or level. 

One more day to finish the trim on the slate, the front door, and the new knobs for the glass hutch doors.  We finally decided on the perfect knobs for the hutch doors from Anthropologie and they were out of stock.  The search began again.  We found a metal and red wood sunburst but the order would not complete online and when we called, the owner never called back.  Next we found red granite but the shipping from overseas was exorbitant so back to the computer search.  Mercury glass was nice but too predictable, the Texas Longhorns were cute but no we aren’t going for a hook ‘em horns yeh! UT kitchen, mercury glass was pretty but a little too Victorian.  I gave up for weeks and then I went back to Anthropologie to see what else they had we might consider and our first choice was back in stock.  We didn’t have to settle or spend a fortune in the cost of the knobs or the shipping.  The round knobs are metal, antique bone and horn.  Different and contemporary and we love them.

Thursday we went to IKEA in Canada to return a few things.  In and out in half an hour and on our way home.  Nexus cards are the best way to cross the border.

Since we removed the dropped ceilings and the upper cabinets are higher now, we ordered an aluminum two step ladder that takes up only two inches of wall space when folded.  Now I will be able to reach into the cabinet over the refrigerator that holds all those crystal bowls that we use once a year or the punch bowls that we never use…but now we have a space for them.

Bill finished off the trim around the fireplace and put the knobs on the glass hutch doors.  He will return next week to finish any little things we add to our list and then we will be officially done!