Friday, April 27, 2012

Kitchen Reno: In Progress

It's been a very busy past couple of weeks, but our kitchen cabinets are being painted right now.

Derek and I chickened out when it came to painting them ourselves. Neither of us was confident enough in our skills to be sure that we would do a really good job, and we really didn't want to go through all the trouble if they would end up looking bad. So luckily, we found a professional who is able to paint them and do a few other things that should make the kitchen look really good in the end.

Here are a few photos of what it looks like now:



A few things you can see from the pictures:

1.  We decided to go dark. Really dark. The paint color is a 50% mixture of brown and black. We thought about white, but we didn't want bright white. But with white trim and light colored countertops, we just didn't feel good about it. We'll be installing a lighter colored backsplash, that will lighten the walls up and hopefully make the dark cabinets pop.

2. The old backsplash is gone.You can see the white space below the brown paint and above the countertops where it used to be. A couple of weeks ago Derek and his parents removed it, and we filled in all the holes it left in the wall and smoothed everything out, so the walls are ready for us to install a new backsplash as soon as the cabinets are done.

3. Our island is gone. It's in the shop, and is getting a little work done on it, including a little extra something special.

4. We already showed pictures of the new stove, but the rest of the new appliances have arrived. You can see the fridge and part of the dishwasher in these photos. The microwave isn't up yet, because...

5. The old vent over the stove is gone, as well as the cabinets that were above it, and the new microwave is going to be installed above the stove. A little shelf will be added above it, where I can put some cookbooks or other decorations. I'm really excited about this because it will open up a lot of counter space. And, with the work that's being done on the island, we'll have more counter space there too!

6. The sides of the cabinets are not painted. That is because they are laminate. So we decided to cover them with bead board. So that will be added on later, when the doors come back.

So there it is in progress. Hopefully by the end of next week I'll be back with pictures with the doors on and new hardware!

Friday, April 13, 2012

More Excitement

There have been a few more exciting things going on around here that I want to document on the ol' blog.

1. UK won their 8th National Championship last week!!! When I started college in the fall of 2001, I had high hopes that I would see a national championship during my time at college. That didn't happen. But now, 11 seasons later, they finally did it! This meant lots of fun times watching games with friends. And, since none of us got to experience a national championship while we were in college, we all went to campus to watch the national championship game and celebrate in the streets with all the crazies. It was such a fun night, and I'm so glad that we got to experience it.

During the game

All the people celebrating in the street after

Proud to be Kentucky Wildcats!

2. Lucianne had her baby! Last week, Lu gave birth to a precious little baby girl. I love her already. I'm bringing Kristian and Luci dinner tonight and can't wait to lay my eyes on the sweet girl again. I'm excited to watch her grow up, and see her little personality develop, see which of her parents' characteristics she got, and see her grow into a little girl who knows she is loved by so many people, but most importantly, by Jesus.  Here are a few photos from the hospital.

Luci and Maeli

Derek and sweet Maeli

3. Easter! We celebrated Easter with Derek's family. It was a wonderful weekend of time with family, and celebrating the greatest gift we could ever imagine. I'll end this post with a little picture of our nephew Oliver, cutest thing ever!