Kitchen, Cupcakes and More

Some updates on this week's projects. First, in the kitchen, I picked up the replacement chandelier and installed it! And it looks great!! I'll return the bent one this morning.

Ta-da!

Tuesday I blogged about my plans to participate in the Paint It Purple blog party. I'm really excited that Jenn, Britain and Peyton will join the fun. Jenn, as usual, had brilliant ideas! We are going to bake on Thursday, decorate the cupcakes Friday (maybe with the help of the Alpha Chi collegians at FSU) and then deliver the cupcakes to Refuge House, our local DV shelter/agency so the staff and residents can enjoy them! Look for our blog posts on Saturday, October 2nd!

In other news, I've had a semi-famous week. Tuesday I was featured on the AXO Florida State alumnae and collegians blog - see the post here: http://axofloridastate.blogspot.com/2010/09/amy-zoldak-zeta-upsilon-alumna-honorary.html. Wednesday, our plumbers posted a link to my blog post about their last visit on their facebook page http://www.facebook.com/McNeillPlumbing?v=wall Makes me wonder what might happen today.... hmmm. :)

Kitchen Project Update - Electrical

Lots of excitement today in the kitchen, with as is now the routine, a bit of disappointment thrown in. The electricians installed all the lights, outlets and switches today, as well as the microwave.

Here's the baking section - all done now except for the glass in the one door there, fhe drawer in the dropped counter (rolling area) section, and some paint touch-ups. It's so exciting having the microwave installed!

Another view (in this one you can see the drawer we're missing). Notice also all the nice outlets.

All the outlets are installed, including this one in the back door end of the island. Cantaloupe anyone?

All the recessed lights are finished and look great. Here are two.

A close up of one of the recessed lights:

And here is where the disappointment comes in - the chandelier is up - but it is bent. See how the light on the left is not level with the others? You'll notice we are also two glass "globes" short - they broke en route so we have 2 little boxes full of tiny shards. The good news is that the vendor has another one at the store so we don't have to wait three weeks for the replacement to arrive. I'll pick it up on Wednesday and we'll swap it out ourselves. Stay tuned for photos as this is obviously a work in progress!

Next up for me, spackling, caulking and painting!

Kitchen Project Update

After our summer hiatus, I've been back to work on the new kitchen.

Last week the plumber came over and finished almost everything on his list. The one item left is anchoring down the dishwasher, but the original clips are lost, so I have to order some from the manufacturer. We have a new utility sink (which I purchased the week before last). The plumber also replaced all the piping under our kitchen sink. Fun fact about the "utilatub" is that it came from E.L. Mustee and Sons of Cleveland, and more precisely, Brook Park, which is hubs' hometown.

Three weeks ago I ordered the light fixture for the kitchen, and it arrived on Friday, as did the replacement part for the microwave. Now we just need to have the kitchen ceiling painted (which is scheduled for Thursday of this week) and then we'll be ready for the electricians to finish up. I posted more about the light fixture here, and here it is in the box:

My next kitchen update post will either photos of the painted ceiling or a photo list of the things left to be completed... my visual to-do list, so to speak. 

Electrical Progress!

Not the most exciting thing to look at (or to clean up after) but we had 3 electricians here all day so lots of progress was made. They'll be back in a week or so to do all the finish work.

Here are the new recessed lights. The one directly over the sink will be behind a piece of wood (an apron?) that connects the cabinets to the right and left sides of it. They'll get trim etc. after the ceiling is finished and painted.

There are also 2 new recessed lights in the area that runs on the far side of the island (near the back door)

We also moved a lot of outlets around, including a new 220 line for the double oven. Tomorrow should be exciting as we're expecting a lot more cabinets to appear. Hopefully we'll see countertops Friday, Saturday or Monday. Cross your fingers for us!

Kitchen Project Lighting and Fabrics

B and I had such a great time shopping today for the kitchen. First we went to Tallahassee Lighting, Fan & Blinds to look at light fixtures and options for recessed lighting. Wow there are tons of interesting lights out there (see for example the pineapple light at left). It was fun (and a little overwhelming) to see all the choices.

One of the cool things we learned about are LED recessed lights. Cree makes 6" "cans" that use almost no energy, create no heat and last for 50,000 hours! How amazing (and green) is that? Check them out at http://www.creeledlighting.com/LR6.htm

Here are some of the styles I liked for above the kitchen table:

  

The second one was MUCH prettier in real life - it didn't photograph well at all. The third one is the current favorite. It is a bit elongated with 6 cylindrical glass shades - two on each longer side and 1 on each end. Here is a picture from the manufacturer:

It's from the Hendrik collection by Kichler.

After the lighting victories, we went to Chrysalis Fabrics which was even more fun! We picked out some fabrics we really like. We have 3 projects that need fabric: Roman shades for 3 windows - 2 in the kitchen, the 3rd in the powder room; a cushion for the mudroom bench in the pantry/utility room/laundry room; and I'd like to recover my 5 folding lyre chairs.

Here are the favorites:

(The top one for Roman shades, lower one for cushion. The top is really cute when you can see the whole pattern - it has ferns and butterflies - everything is in shades of blue and green.)

(The top for cushion, middle for lyre chair seats, bottom for Roman shades.)

(Another possibility for the Roman shades... I like the red highlight in it but don't think that's enough to make it "the favorite.")

(And this pic is to see how my 3 favorites look together... not bad!)

This photo from Houzz shows what I picture the Roman shades looking like (shape and style more than the actual fabric):

traditional dining room design by san francisco interior designer Amoroso Design