Starting to feel whole…

Starting to feel whole…

As winter nears were gearing up, hunkering down, and wrapping some projects up. The main issue is that I have no workshop to continuously work throughout the winter. So with that said, We've been pressing to finish some things before the snow hits, Well mostly my father…He's been very busy here as of late, It's very much appreciated. Everything is really starting to come together… It's funny how finishing a few small projects has a huge effect on the feel and overall atmosphere of the house.

With winter comes lots of yard raking and brush cleanup. Dawn removed picked the last few tomatoes and cleaned out her garden for the winter. Sadly no more fresh veggies will be available for a while.

I've got the pool all closed for winter. This actually went pretty smoothly for my first time ever closing a pool. It took the longest to wait for the level to drain to a point that was below the return lines. Now it's all ready for winter and hopefully much much cleaner to open next season!

The fireplace has been put to use! I've been fabulous and absolutely beautiful. We started with a small grate to get up up and running for the first few fires. I've since replaced it with a new grate that I had made for the fireplace. The new one allows much more room and seems to fit the space much better, even if we don't use the whole thing. Fire ON! I think were going to hold on the fireplace door idea for this season and see how things work.

More Info and Photos After the Break >>>>>

The major thing that's happened lately is my father has finished the cabinets in the kitchen! Yeah, never thought it would be done, and I'm sure he can say the same. He put in many days working while I was at work myself so I didn't have much direct involvement with the completion process. We first designed what we wanted to do around the refrigerator and decided on a simple cabinet overhead with a shelved closet and a broom closet to the right of the fridge.

We got really lucky utilizing all original wood on everything besides the broom closet door. This also includes fixing a drawer front and adding 2 new fronts, more on that later. With the completion of the fridge area it really pulls the whole kitchen together and it looks fabulous. The help that my dad provided is invaluable and superb! The cabinets look great, original if I may say. After all that was the point I guess. This part turned out to be a much larger project than originally thought. In the end I'm beyond happy with the end result. I learned a lot with this whole kitchen remodel. I've had some fun doing this and I think my father did also.

After the cabinet was complete we moved on to a few other woodworking to-do's. The drawers in the kitchen were literally falling apart. The fronts had all been fixed by someone before and the drawers themselves were at about the end. One front had been replaced with a piece of oak, This would need to be corrected. Each drawer in the kitchen has been rebuilt and remounted with an original front. The drawer front is actually mounted to a box to remove the previous problem with the front falling off. Now all the drawers in the kitchen have been repaired.

The last bit of woodworking that I wanted to complete is adding an entryway cabinet. In the entrance we've got a small closet area for coats, shoes, and hats but it was never covered with any doors or anything, a somewhat awkward use of space. I wanted to create a cabinet with drawers and some cubbyholes for storage of gloves, hats, shoes, or whatever. I designed the cabinet to have 2 drawers for keys, mail, or whatever else. I also thought that 3 squares would be nice to have for storage. We utilized some extra pieces to match the drawers with the original wood too! Currently we just throw extra shoes within the holes but they will eventually have fitting baskets for storage. The bottom is open to allow a few pair of shoes to slide under the cabinet for easy access. We then raised the coat rack and shelf to finish the cabinet. Once we get our kitchen counters, this will have a matching piece. This cabinet turned out very nice, and it seems to fit seamlessly and will surely be used for clutter control.

Speaking of counters were well on our way! I've decided that I want to use soapstone counters in our kitchen. I love the look, texture and it's properties. Shopping around was the issue. I found many installers with suppliers but I was specific, I want a grey/Black hue soapstone, NOT a green soapstone. Most told me that that did not exist, and that was about the time I said thanks for your time. I ended up finding a local installer who just installed a very interesting piece of soapstone that was gray. After visiting the shop to take a look at the remnant piece that was installed they told me that they had matching pieces in Chicago! So off to Chicago we went to confirm the pieces were up to par.

The best part is that the large island will be a single piece! This is pretty rare to have for a piece of soapstone, Usually long spans need a seam. This was a huge bonus! So within the next we will be getting our measurements and finally demolishing the added on tile in the kitchen. We'll be without counters for a week but it will be so worth it in the end. I just hope that it looks as good as I think it will in the house! I'll keep everyone posted about this!

I've also spent lots of time to temporarily seal some of the windows for the season. Most of the windows in the back of the house were replaced at one time, very poorly and just caulked in. The process was to remove the caulk, clean out the areas were there were openings all the way inside and then re-caulk much better to actually create a seal. Below are some of the photos to show you the "great" job someone else did…I just pray that no one actually got paid to do this…because it's terrible. The new job will stop the air leak for this winter until i can get to fixing all 19 of them in the summer.

Thats the main of the projects…Some other happenings were:

Finally after completing our floors in February, I've started to complete the floor trim. This is a pretty easy but time consuming job. About 70% done at this point with plans to finish this weekend. A simple floor trim really finishes the look! It's all coming together.

Our first Halloween! Dawn dressed up for her niece and nephew and for all the other kids…well we only ended up having about 20 people. We think that most were scared of our dimly lit home to come to visit our door. Most just paused at the drive and looked for a second and then kept walking past, That is OK more candy for me! I cant blame them for the history our house has had in previous years with the other owner.

A new Family Member was added too….Meet our new kitty Mishka. She's a rescue kitty from our local shelter. She has been very good so far, No scratching furniture or wood, Only one "accident", and been very convertible in her new home. She very much enjoys our southern exposure and the sunlight the spills into the house providing some heat. She's still learning the rules but she's still young.

Well that about does it…That brings everything up to date before this holiday weekend. We will be in touch again soon, For now I'll leave you with some photos that I've taken the other night showing some interior photos of the kitchen/entry/living/dining area!

-IM