Encountering the New Counters

The counters are in and the kitchen as they say in Star Wars is "fully operational". Hurray! Unfortunately the photos I have so far, don't show the counters just yet. Next round...I promise. You'll get the idea of how things are anyway. We still have to put the pulls on all the doors, finish the tile backsplash, and all kinds of other odds and ends. Most of our food is still waiting in boxes for the arrival of the pantry. But...the girls and I spent a lovely snow day yesterday enjoying sitting at our new breakfast bar. Which, as we found out, is great for lunch, hot chocolate after playing in the snow AND for writing Valentines.

Cabinets are hung in the kitchen with care

Yes indeed, the cabinets we have are hung and put in place. The microwave is operational (fewer trips to the basement now)and it's really starting to look like a kitchen. To quote an ol' Grouch..."Oh, I love trash!" especially when I have a double unit pull out drawer (and a thing which tells time) now! I think I will let the pictures speak for themselves.

Pickle in the Middle

OK, so we tried to steal third and got sent back to second. Today ended up not being quite as fruitful as we had hoped. Our pantry has missing pieces, one cabinet is 36" tall and it's supposed to be 36" wide, a drawer bumps into the handle of the oven so it won't open all the way AND some of drawer fronts are missing. Well, YOU wanted to hear about the kitchen so I guess that means the bad with the good. The best part of today was Audrey and Lindy making the biggest cardboard box from the cabinets into a clubhouse (Audrey even napped in it this afternoon!) Let's just hope it doesn't take another 4-6 weeks to get replacements! Stay tuned.

Rounding Third and Heading for Home

Yes, friends, we are in the home stretch. Don't ya just love baseball analogies?! You would even think that a baseball analogy was intended with the title of our blog..."Catch Our Kitchen Story." But in reality it was Shawn's idea to pay homage to my father (who would have simultaneously loved and been completely frustrated by our project) who used to say when he would come home from work, "what's for dinner...'kitchy, katchy, korri'?" This apparently was how I used to pronounce "chicken cacciatore" when I was little and it stuck with our family. Just a little Wang-Warren family history there for you. Not sure why I thought that important but it's my blog and I'll cry if I want to.

The additional cabinets arrived today from Kraftmaid! For those of you who don't know, back in November Shawn and I had a very interesting and worthwhile experience at the Kraftmaid outlet in Lordstown, Ohio. Something we definitely recommend if you have time and patience. We were able to get all but 5 of our cabinets. So...the ones we had to order came today! Many thanks go out to my cousin, Tony, who was generous in sharing his employee discount with us. (See you in May after your zoo trip. We're counting on you for dinner, Castinas!)

The sink base is installed so we should have a working sink within a day or two! Hurray! Over the course of this week, we should have the upper cabinets and microwave installed as well. The stove is hooked up and I did cook on Saturday although it's going to take a little getting used to...this cooking thing, once again. One day last week, Audrey asked what we were having for dinner and my reply was, "whatever number you want Mommy to call."

Our family room area is essentially complete but not yet accessorized (see photos of before and after)and just waiting for us to move in the table and chairs for every day eating. The breakfast bar is not complete yet as the counters will be one of the last things put in place. We'll keep you posted! Thanks to everyone for their interest in our project. Can't wait to have you over to see it!