New lights installed

Not a huge update, but I'm in a holding pattern until my cabinets to replace the damaged ones come in. I'll use this as an opportunity to take care of some of the lingering small things bugging me. First was getting rid of the dirty old-school lights. Thanks Home Depot for a 2 for $30 sale on these lights.

The first one was replaced in the really dim hallway. Going from one bulb to two helped a lot.

The entranceway light was pretty old, and had seem better days

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Kitchen Countinues

A few more cabinets hung. Unfortunately, three had some nicks on them and I need to return them. It will be another two weeks before the replacements are in, so finishing the kitchen will take another two weeks.

Also, got the microwave installed.

Cabinets, Day 3

Started Cabinet Hanging

Yesterday we started hanging cabinets. Things, as expected, did not go as smoothly as we envisioned. We couldn't get the first two cabinets as perfectly plumb and level as we would like, and while taking them down....one of the bolts stripped. A trip to Home Depot and an hour later we were able to drill through the stripped bolt to remove it.

Finally, we began piecing them together so that they were how we wanted them (straight, level, flush). Here are the results so far (about a quarter of the way done.)

Primer and Paint in the kitchen

I primer the walls in the kitchen, which made a huge difference in making the room more tolerable to look at. It's actually difficult to tell the original wall color of the kitchen, as there was so much dirt and gunk on the walls. In the first picture, you can see some black water drips that were running down the wall. A

After priming, I painted the areas that wouldn't be blocked off by the cabinets.

Cabs are here

The demolition and tearing apart the kitchen stage is finally over. While I had put the new tile floor in, the walls still had to come down. Now that all the new electrical is in, and the new Sheetrock has been put up and joint compounded, I can start to see myself no longer fighting an uphill battle. Not only have the appliances arrived a few weeks ago, but the kitchen cabinets were dropped off today. Unfortunately, the only place I had for them to go was the living room floor. Still...it's progress

Scraping wallpaper is a sick joke

I finally got to the point where I had to scrape the floral wallpaper off the bathroom walls. While I wasn't sad to see it go, I wanted to put it off as long as I could. It's a monotonous job where you have your arms above your head scraping for two hours or so.

Fortunately my plaster walls make it easier to remove than traditional dry wall. The trick is to spray the walls with hot water and let it soak. The problem is I don't have hot water in the house. Solution? Fill a coffee pot with water to let it heat the water up, then pour it into the spray bottle.

Making it worse before it's better...

Well, they say things will look worse before they start to look better. I can say that is the case here. We took out walls almost everywhere between the kitchen and bathroom. The reason for this was to allow access so I could run new wires and install new outlets. I want to put in under-cabinet lighting, so I needed an extra switch for that. I also needed another switch to run some spotlights outside. . I also ran a dedicated line for the dishwasher and garbage disposal. I also needed to put new sheetrock up where they had a cutout for a vent fan outside.

As you can see, there is a nice view between the kitchen and bath now.

I ran a 20A line that will be dedicated for the microwave, so the lights don't dim when it's turned on.

The picture on the right shows the wire running from the circuit breaker box across one of the rafters in the basement. It ran about 53 feet. The picture on the left was for the new dishwasher and garbage disposal line.

Some other misc outlets for dishwasher and under-cabinet lighting. You can also see the view into the kitchen from the shower.

Living Room finished

I took a break from the kitchen/bathroom renovations to finish the living room and dining room area. Sometimes you need a break from working on the same area and working on so many things at the same time at are unfinished. I wanted to be able to call it a day on at least one of the rooms, and the living room didn't need too much more. I painted all of the walls, painted the wood trim around the floor, and painted over the wood fireplace mantle.

 We ran HDMI, network, speaker and cable wires up above the fireplace to hang a future television with a hopefully clean looking install.

Glad to be able to be finished with all of the rooms besides the kitchen and bathroom now, so I can feel less scatter-brained working on three-four rooms at once.