The Kitchen Files: Rise up, Rise up

Oh rise and show your power! Remember that song? By Parachute Club they're Canadian eh, and they won a Juno for that amazing song, true story...I looked it up!
  We took a cue from the good ol' club of parachute fans and made our cabinets rise up! Quite literally. We built bases for them (and by we, I totally mean Jason did all the work, and I just laughed at him when he flubbed some cuts) I did throw in my two cents a few times and save him so extra work, so YAY ME! I actually came home from work to find him just finishing up the big corner one. Let me tell you, there's nothing sexier than coming home to see your man on his knees with hard wood. (Oh man, did I just go there?!) Whoops, almost forgot my mother reads this...sorry, mom but I had too...was just set up to perfectly not to.
   ANYWHOOOO...we built simple frames for the base cabinets to be screwed into out of 2x6's because we want to make them 38" high, instead of the standard 36".

Then after we had them in place, we shimmed, shimmed, shimmed. Because the floor was SO out. More warped than Jase's sense of humour. After the third one we were asking ourselves why we didn't just put self-leveler down when we thought about it. Then we remembered it's expensive and we're cheap frugal.

The magic, floating shelf. Why yes, that is double shimmed, and no, there seemed like there wasn't any base actually touching the floor. But Jason secured that bad boy real good - we performed the jump and shimmy test, and it passed.

Then we got to screwing in the cabinets. (Not even going to go there) Again we performed the hang test, and she was good and secure. 

While Jason started on the pantry I had SO much fun cutting away the copious amount of shims we used. Good times. Then in the heat of the moment, I got all excited and did this...

Just for fun, to get a bit of an idea of what it'd look like. That's the cork tile flooring. Once they're actually glued down, and butted up all snug like, and all sealed up the lines between them should be less noticeable. But they look good, they're a bit darker in person, can't wait till they're in either.

Kai was being general contractor, and did what any good boss would do, and cut out early.

Lights out, dead dog pose. Apparently so tired she couldn't even make it to her canteen hehe.

So now the kitchen is marginally more functional. At least I can now store a few things in there, and can actually good. There have been some mighty tasty meals comin' out of there since the stove got hooked up. Maybe that's why Jason's been putting in a bit more work, now that I am actually feeding him.

And just for fun, another gratuitous picture of a sleeping Kai. Mainly just because her sleeping positions both astound us and invoke a strong urge to laugh out loud, so they are worth sharing.

Sinking

I had a dream last night I was sinking, in a giant puddle of hot caramel sauce, and instead of trying to save me, Jason kept dipping his giant pretzel stick in the sauce and laughing at me. (eat your heart out with that one Freud)  What I think it means, is that I've had to suffer far too long without a kitchen sink, while my plumber husband does nothing about it. We have had the most gorgeous farm house sink, just sitting around taking up space, waiting for its moment to shine since February! Now that we have that row of cabinets in, there's no excuse for it to not be there. We didn't buy a cabinet for the sink from Ikea for a few reasons. The sink we have is much heavier than any of the styles Ikea sells, and doesn't have any addition "lip" support like the Ikea ones do - we have a true farmhouse style sink. Also, and probably the biggest reason, they didn't have the right size, since they were mostly made for their sinks. So, good thing for us, Jason knows and works with a cabinet maker who could hook us up with a custom, super sturdy cabinet for my beautiful baby. So, I had been harassing Jason for what seemed like eternity (to both of us) to contact this guy, and get it done. So finally he did, and that's another part of the reason we finally got around to doing the rest of the base cabinets, because he wanted/needed to take a look at everything all set up so he knew what he was working with, and what he needed to match. 
   So now the great debate comes in, since we're having a cabinet custom made, what kind of style do we want. 

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 Something like this, which has the cabinet kind of hugging the sink, and two cabinet doors...

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Where the sink looks like it's just resting on the cabinet, and is snug up to the cabinets flanking it. (which I like better than the first, and would go better with the style of cabinets we have.)

Or...

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The drawer style. This is my favourite, and although this sink isn't an apron front sink, we could still get a drawer with ours, it'd just be one large drawer. I like this idea the best, because a lot of the time drawers are just more functional, especially under the sink - you don't have to go rootin' around on your knees smashing your face to get whatever's at the very back. And this way, we could just make a faux drawer with the support piece. So we'll have to talk it over with Mr. Cabinet whenever he gets here to take a look at what needs to be done. Hopefully, it'll be sooner rather than later so I can actually wash dishes in a kitchen sink, as opposed to lugging them all downstairs to wash them in the crappy sink that smells like poop.

The Kitchen Files: Movin' on up...

...well kind of. There have been some new developments in the kitchen that are worth sharing. First...

we got the stove hooked up!!! FINALLY! Throughout the day last Thursday I would periodically break out into a happy dance, and there was also a whole lot more fist-pumping going on than in an average day. The thought of being able to cook even spaghetti in a fraction of the time it has taken me for the past year got me all giddy. Our first meal cooked was a delicious roasted chicken and vegetables. It's already got quite the workout, and I look forward to continuing to put it through its paces. 

We also moved the fridge into its rightful home when we did the stove. And it got a well deserved scrub down to commemorate it's new place, and a subsequent grocery shop has filled her up and let her bask in glory.

This past weekend we also FINALLY cleaned out the dining room of all the crap that was being housed in there (and by we, I actually mean Jason!). Mind you he mostly just moved the majority of it to another room, but it was clear & clean enough for us to get at the cabinets to put the rest of them together.

Plus it's quite amazing to see it all cleaned out like that. Now if I can just motivate him to get the mud scraped and off the floor, so I can prime and paint and lay floor, it'd be like a fairy tale.

After he cleaned out the dining room, he got to fixing the one burner on the stove that wasn't working. He managed to get the power burner working, but this is was the simmer burner looked like after he "fixed" it.

Umm...hello singed nose hair! You notice the nice blue flames on the outside - that's what it's supposed to look like haha. I was tempted to run across to the store and grab a big ol' bag of marshmallows and start singing campfire songs, but I was too busy laughing and trying to get a picture. After tweaking some more, he managed to legitimately fix it, and now we have four working burners and a working oven, so I am like a pig in mud I'm so happy. 

We also started building the bases for the base cabinets to get mounted on, so by this time next week we should have them all installed, and then I can actually store my kitchen things. In. the. kitchen. It is definitely a step in the right direction, and yes, a step that shouldn't have taken 11 months to reach.