It was a year ago sunday that we closed on the house. Fast forward a year later and we finally have a kitchen. This before and after is a bit premature because we haven't installed the back-splash or the pot filler above the stove, but compared to how it used to look... whoa.



Here are some during photos. The idea for the cabinet color came from the wall behind the old cabinets:

It's the season when the "Bah Humbug" begins to rear it's ugly mug. Yep right around Thanksgiving. You know the holiday in which we thank the Native Americans for welcoming us to the new world, right before we stole all their land and forced them onto reservations. Kristin and I opted out of Thanksgiving this year. In all actuality it had nothing to do with some political view of Thanksgiving, nope, actually we love Thanksgiving (maybe a little too much for our own good). But, how often do you get a four-day weekend to work on the house. That's right we blew our whole holiday on the house. We still did the turkey breast in the oven, but wow, did we make hella-progress on the house.

This Thanksgiving:
1. We laid in bed almost the whole first day.
2. Installed the vent hood above the stove.
3. Rewired the wall behind the stove to fit the stove height.
4. Painted the remaining cabinet doors.
5. Installed said cabinet doors.
6. Installed the bathroom cabinets.
7. Mixed and readied our staining station for our interior doors.

Tags: Kitchen, Bathroom, Cabinets, Vent Hood, Electrical

Occasionally a project deal comes along that can't be passed up. In this case, we decided the plastic, exposed bulb light fixtures on the porch have been a nuisance to both us and our neighbors, but we'd decided we didn't want to update the exterior until we'd finished painting. So, I took a little trip to the Habitat for Humanity store, actually it was more like a haulin'-ass-to-the-store trip because I'd realized that the Habitat store was closing in 15 minutes. After getting there I found two fixtures that I thought would work, but by all appearances they were straight out of Maddie Hayes' apartment. However, with my artistic vision, I saw a potential for a beautiful fixture for our porch. I assured my wife that this was a temporary fixture and that it would suffice until we purchased the fixtures we needed. After a little work this weekend, here are the before and afters:



In the end, my wife seems to think that the refurbishment went so well that we don't need to purchase new ones. I dunno, the Madera series from RH looks mighty awesome.

After it was all said and done:
The fixtures ended up costing us about $8 each, the fixtures were $4 each and after the cost of the glass and the paint it came to about $8.

Tags: Lighting, Exterior