Friday: Transformers... (3/2/12)

On, no!  Reuben has sprouted human arms!!  Look, he's shrieking too!  Flee for the hills!! 

Friday: A linear gas burner (3/2/12)

They just installed the chimney damper on the top of the chimney flu (must get a photo but it's raining right now).  I'm not sure I'm entirely sold on the visibility of the handle.  We may need to work on this.

The burner is supposed to eventually be covered with a brushed stainless steel plate with a slot down the middle for the flame to peek through.  So this places the shiny silver damper handle directly in the center of the black opening, directly over the flame.  Thinking this could use some improvement...

Holy incendiary agent, Batman - it works!  (We're still trying to figure out if this is really working out the way we wanted it to...)

Thursday: The kitchen goes full-on! (3/1/12)

We finally pulled all the protective film off the cabinets, got the dishwasher running and re-fully-installed (the top came immediately unglued from the counter piece, so the whole thing would rock forward when you opened the door), and started moving our stuff back into the kitchen.

And the old front hallway where we have the second sink:

We also decided that we should bite the bullet and have the old restaurant sink moved to its most efficient location in the pantry, which meant moving the hood as well.

This means the plumbing underneath the sink doesn't need to travel 5 feet, which is good.  And the room just makes more sense this way.  It's not plumbed yet, but I think it'll be great.

Thursday: Let there be light(s)! (2/16/12)

I do love it when the electricians come.  On this day, they installed the two kitchen ceiling light decorative fixtures, and the three concrete pendants (which were a bear - they had to be height-adjusted from the attic, which is not an entirely friendly place to be).

And then they pointed out that the dining room pendant (completely unassembled) had somehow become separated from the assembly instructions, which are critical.  While they did other things, I got the store to email the directions to me, and the three of us proceded to spend something like two hours assembling and adjusting wires on this thing to get it to the right height and level.  Lordy.  I don't know how we managed to order the hardest lights in the universe to install, but we did.  But I loooooooove them.

Wednesday: Fridge move (2/15/12)

Now that we finally have the kitchen sink up and running, and are close to having the dishwasher operational, I finally feel like I can start moving the food from the downstairs fridge to the upstairs.  I spent an amazingly long time taking all the shelves and drawers out and washing them down to prepare, in accordance with the directions.

Since this is an all-fridge configuration, it's quite different from our last two fridges (the coldest spot isn't at all where we expected) and I tried to quickly commit this to memory.  No go.  Brain too small.

So I used the white board front to assist my addled brain while I cart things upstairs...

Friday: Plumbing and kitchen sinks (2/10/12)

On Friday, the plumbers were here.  The kitchen sink had been installed the day before, but this day the faucet was installed and the drain was connected.  I can't quite believe it.

They also installed the Craigslist restaurant sink in the pantry, but it's not plumbed yet.  There was a bit of a cluster while planning this room - everything came about completely out of sequence.  The plumbing went in before the sink was discovered, then the hood (purchased used on eBay) was installed, largely based on where the ceiling and attic rafters were located, before thinking about where the actual sink would be....  Oy.  Much of it was my fault, actually.

The hood is there for the coffee roaster, so the counter will be very convenient.  It's just that 5 foot drain run that's now a bit of a drag.  Good thing it's a pantry.  No need to be pretty.

I actually don't remember what day this happened... they installed and painted the bookshelves on the pantry side.  I'm trying rather hard to wait 30 days to put cookbooks here as they say that paint can take that long to fully cure on surfaces like bookshelves.

And the monitors are up and running (on a limited scale).  Installing them is not an experience I'm eager to relive, so hopefully this won't require much troubleshooting.

Jack's still working on controlling all the monitors.  The plan is that our little tablet computer will be used as a "remote" to control the monitors.  Then we can use the computer or stream TV or movies on the monitors as we choose.  We've basically proven it out, but it could use some tweaking...

Tuesday: Final finish on floor (2/7/12)

The fifth and final coat was put on the floors on Friday.  We got back home on Saturday, I picked up Reuben from "country living" on Monday, got his nails retrimmed this morning, and took these photos this afternoon.  It's a bit glossier than I expected (probably because they put 5 coats on rather than 4), but I do think it looks great.  Waterlox.  So far, so good.