Kitchen Remodel Day 4 *updated*

It's time for your daily update on our kitchen remodel :) LL is asleep and I've got time to blog :) I am LOVING today's progress!!! We are getting our floor tiled! We picked an 18in tile placed diagonally. Here's the beginning of the layout and a closer view of the tile we picked. It's not too crazy since it has to go with our existing tile in the hallways.
Frank is back with his guy to do the floor. Here they are getting started with the thin set.
So far the hall is done and they are working on the kitchen. I will be updating later. I REALLY LOVE IT!!

I'm back ;) It's almost done!! Here's the hallway again a little farther.The main kitchen area....The new walkway....The end product of today....As you can see it's not completely done. They are coming back on Monday to finish all the cuts and grout it. I still LOVE it!!!!

Kitchen Remodel Day 3 *edited*

Today is building day! The carpenters are here! They are installing the cabinets and building the island. The first thing they did was to bring all the cabinets into the kitchen. Our nice open kitchen is now cluttered!The first installation was the wall cabinets! It looks like it was always meant to be there!Next they installed the island cabinets. You can see that the dishwasher is going in the middle.Now they are building the part where the wine refrigerator is going. I'm putting Little Lion down for a nap. I can't wait to see what the final form of the island will look like! Plus it'll give me a sense of what the new kitchen will look like in person! Check back later for final pictures of the day.....I'm thinking they won't be here until 10 :)

OK So the carpenter's finished the *island*.
Now you must have noticed I put ******* around island! The reason is because there has been a small :) communication problem. My lovely main guy from Ameritiles, Jay, thought I wanted it looking more table like and he was putting granite legs under the granite to hold up the rest of the granite. So basically what you saw above would be all there was underneath the island. To me, I thought it looked like a dining room table instead of an island. I have always wanted it to be more islandy and just have overhang for barstools. SOOOO it puts us a bit behind, but it'll be ok. The carpenters are coming back to add more wood to close off the bottom. You can see the pencil markings of where the wood will be going. Jay has been very courteous to my needs (even though my granite is a bit smaller than I would like, thanks to mother nature ;). Nonetheless, he is working hard to make me happy ;) I'm sure the island will be wonderful!

Kitchen Remodel Day 2 *Updated Thursday Morning*

Today is plumbing and electric day. The plumber has been here all morning *trying* to put a hole in our concrete to move the plumbing for the sink over. Here's how nice and clean the floor was when they got here.While they were jackhammering the concrete, Little Lion and I went outside to avoid the noise. Holy Hot Tamale!!! It is HOT outside!!! We had to entertain ourselves with the garden hose. LL was soaked! At least he was cool!
Here's what the hole looked like after an hour and a half.And here's what the hole looked like an hour later. It was an inch off of where it is supposed to be except the jackhammer died!!!! The guys had to go to Home Depot to get a sledge hammer. And now we listen to the sledge hammer. They are close to being in the right spot. Then the plumbing work begins. The electrician should be out later today. I may add more pictures later :)

Here's a cute picture of Little Lion that I'm sending to his preschool since he's starting in a month...eeekkkkk!

Can you believe the plumber and electrician left at 9:45?????!!!!!!! I didn't update last night since I was tired! So here I am this morning! Here is the finished product of the plumber's morning. It doesn't look like he did a lot, but it was a lot of concrete and dirt!
The electrician and plumber returned later that evening to finish up. They had to dig from the wall to the island for power. I NEED A DISHWASHER!!! Here they are hard at work.
And I don't want holes in my kitchen floor, so they patched it up with concrete!

David Beckham Watch Out!

You didn't think I'd only be blogging about the kitchen for 2 weeks, did you????

Last night Little Lion showed off his new beach ball soccer skills. He was running all over the backyard kicking the beach ball. He even was doing fancy moves and kicking it around in a circle. Here is sequence shots of LL playing soccer.

We were impressed. We may just have to sign him up for soccer next year!!

Kitchen Remodel Day 1 *edited*

Since LL is napping, I figured I'd show you the progress of the kitchen so far. Here is what the kitchen looked like this morning. It's all cleared out of our stuff and boy oh boy do we have a lot of stuff! It is now happily sitting in our dining room ;)
LL and I had an errand to run an hour after they started and my Dad came to *house* sit ;) He only took a few pictures and none that were too great...kinda like Jay's from Ameritiles :) Here is the peninsula minus the top and wall. Frank and his men are doing a fine job and are very friendly. They are efficient and being careful about getting the job right. Here they are and the progress they had made once I had gotten home....only 2 hours later!!!!



As you can see our family room is a cave and to get to it, we have to walk through our bedroom out to the lanai and through the screen door. These 2 weeks are going to be fabulous! *insert lots of sarcasm*

I'll be posting more pictures of today's work later. Jay and the plumber are coming over later to layout the island. So the plumber will be able to move the plumbing in the right spot tomorrow and the electrician can get power over to it.

Keep checking back!!!!!

OK the demo men have left the building! Here is the cleaned up, empty kitchen. It's all ready to be beautiful! And I even got Frank in the pic this time :)

Before the Chaos!

The kitchen remodel was supposed to start today, but instead they are starting tomorrow. They originally planned on demoing the peninsula today and the tile tomorrow. However, they figured they'll just do both in one day. They will be here tomorrow bright and early to start ripping apart the kitchen. So in honor of the last day of my house's original kitchen, here are some before pictures. I even cleaned up for you ;)


The plan is to take out the peninsula and make a huge island (6' x 6.5') to connect the kitchen and breakfast area. We are putting in crown molding, new tile, back splash, and granite counter tops. It's going to look sooooo good when it's done!!!

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's LL's Bedroom!!

Whew! A month later we finally finished Little Lion's airplane bedroom! I'm glad to be done with it and it looks super cute! Here are the few before pics...I should have taken more!
As you can see we painted the walls sky blue since we are doing an airplane theme. After getting half way through, we were a little concerned it was going to be too blue and make the room smaller. We forged on determined to finish.

We thought the sky needed sun! We put the sun above the door. I used my 5th grade teaching knowledge to make a perfect circle by holding a string in the middle and chalk at the other end of the string and drew. (click to see better)Mr. E painted it yellow Did you know that yellow and blue make green???? Sooo it took 3 coats of paint to make it yellow. I drew triangle rays and painted them in....3 times!
We had some left over orange paint from our family room and decided to add some depth to our sun. My mom got LL airplane sheets and comforter set. Too cute!We ordered from Ebay 2 biplane decals for the wall. They were pretty easy to put up and just the right size! LL loved them!

My idea was to sky write LL's name from the biplane. So that was my project while Mr. E sponge painted clouds on the wall.
Here Mr. E is working hard on clouds!
AND PRESENTING THE FINAL AIRPLANE BIG BOY ROOM PICTURES!


I love it and LL loves it too! I think this is a great kids room where imagination can flourish!