Blowing through the kitchen....

I feel as though this past week has just streamed past me, with little time to think and breathe...literally, as I now seem to be fighting some kind of bronchial infection.

Boy S was home sick from school all week with the same thing. He did a pretty good job of keeping out of the way so that I could get my reno work done, I must say.


I can hardly believe, but in the past week I have done these things:

1.had a eco-energy home audit assesement

this was really cool. Justin, the energy auditor came and attached a blower fan to our front door, which allowed him to create negative pressure inside the house and measure the amount of loss from different places. He also determined the overall R value of the home. Now we can go ahead and have that new high efficiency furnace installed next week, and get about $1500 back on the install fee. Since the current furnace is over 30 yrs old, we're told it will just drag down the price of the home if we don't replace it.

2.with some help from cousin J, we tore out the entire kitchen. Then, us two amateurs managed to build two banks of cabinets, with counter tops (well, the bar top is still on custom order, but will be here soon). We still need to make the doors. But I must say, I am totally impressed with how they look, and the fact that they are near perfectly square, plumb and true. We left a spot for a dishwasher, and the plumber will come next week to install it.

Tommorrow, I need to sand and prime all the new lower cabinets, as well as the old uppers. We decided to leave the old uppers in place, and just replace the doors so that they all match.

The best part about this was that I did a lot of the thinking and figuring for it. I didn't want to use the borrowed old guardless table saw, that was lousily attached to a wobbly patio table with a rusty C-clamp..so cousin J stepped up to the plate. The long and the short of it however, is that with the right tools, I feel confident that I could undertake a kitchen on my own next time. Except for maybe cutting the hole for the sink....nobody has done that yet, as we're all too scared to crack the laminate. Yes, its laminate, but at least we sprung for one of the higher end laminates. The solid surface was too too much.

Gee, I guess that's it really. It seems like so much has happened, as I've been go go go on this kitchen. With only a few hours sleep each night...and only sleeping long enough to dream about cabinet construction...yes, renos are a full time job for me right now.

More later and I'll post some pics of the kitchen.