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Reframing excitement.

It took quite a while, but we finally got around to reframing the outside wall of the kitchen a few weeks ago. We're now waiting for the last of the windows to be built (the small one). Hopefully we'll be able to install the doors and windows soon.

The project was easier than it sounds. We started by removing the siding and sheathing down to the studs and then cut out the studs to accommodate the new design.

We reframed the new openings--door on the left, double-hung window in the middle, small casement window on the right. If you look closely inside of the kitchen you can see the double-hung window that will eventually go in the middle.

Next, the new sheathing went on (we'll just cut the openings for the door and windows when we're ready to install those).

Followed by some tar paper for protection from the elements. Now we wait. Soon we'll have lovely morning light in our kitchen again :-)

Okay, fine, we're still here.

And we've been working on a variety of projects lately.

Some of our storm windows had damage on the frames due to some unexplained oily liquid on the floor of our garage (a "gift" from the PO that we thought we had taken care of) and of course we're repairing them instead of buying new ones or rebuilding. The process can be picky (apply epoxy, let dry, repeat, repeat, and repeat yet again) but it's worth it to have storm windows that work nicely and are true to the house.

We also installed a piece of slate in our kitchen. Ron picked up a large piece of slate a few years ago, and we finally have a use for part of it--yay! No, it didn't come with the blue dividing line, we just couldn't wait to start drawing on the thing.  (We may also use some of it in the kitchen counter backsplash.) We even mounted a piece of steel on the back of it so it's magnetized.

The magnetized chalk board will come in very handy with our next big project which won't be fully realized until September :-)  (For those of you eagerly awaiting this belly shot, I definitely have a watermelon not a cute basketball!)

Updates.

There's still lots of kitchen planning going on here at TtoB--finalizing cabinet design, deciding whether or not to include a transom above the new door, getting in touch with the soapstone fabricator, pricing out mini split air conditioners, things like that. In addition to planning, we've done some miscellaneous things as well lately...such as...we installed a pot filler!!!!!!! Here it is in action.

When the walls are finished and the range is in it's final resting place the pot filler will reach to at least four of the six burners. Yes, it does seem like a luxury item in our fairly undersized kitchen (really, the sink is darn close to the range), but I love it nonetheless. It wasn't too difficult to install and it is, after all, shiny.

We also managed to finally get rid of our old boiler (by the by, our heating bill has been cut in half since we installed the new boiler and insulated). Our boiler wasn't one of those giganto-monster things that scares children. In fact, it was relatively petite compared to some we've seen. So anyways, it wasn't huge, but it was still taking up valuable space that Ron can now fill with a piece of equipment. Here's the nice new concrete where the boiler used to sit. Not pretty and polished by any stretch, but it's a workshop in the basement, so there you go.

What don't you know?

We were tagged by StuccoHouse a while back to reveal five things that other people might not know . Okay, I'll play, and try to make it about both of us.

1. I used to swim competitively. Ron can't swim, he flails. I don't know why, but this amuses me.

2. I'm bionic. Doctors put titanium in my cervical spine about five years ago. It was a freak, random thing really. My doctor told me that it's more something that happens to men in their 50s. Nice. No accident or anything (in fact I saw a show at the Uptown bar the night before...), but somehow I had a ruptured cervical disc. Turns out, I have an abnormally narrowed spinal canal which made me more susceptible to nerve involvement. The surgery worked well and I've been fine ever since.

3. We are HUGE formula one racing fans. Not to be confused with Indy racing or that other strangely popular race league in the U.S. My favorite driver is/was Michael Schumacher. Ron really hates Schumacher. We both like the Finnish drivers.

4. We keep a box of hockey pucks on our front porch. They're always ready to go in the winter for a pick-up game or just good fun.

5. Ron can get around Venice (Italy) without a map. If you've been there, you know that's pretty challenging. He spent some time living their during graduate school. If the opportunity ever arises, we will move abroad. Topping the list would be Venice, somewhere in Portugal, or somewhere in the Alps (Swiss or Italian).

Post holiday goings on.

We've been busy, clearly not busy posting about our busy-ness, but well, right, no good excuse :-) Anyways, we had a pre-holiday frenzy to finish plastering the living and dining rooms. Done--no more cracks or textured ceilings, yay! The living room's been painted but we're still trying to decide on the dining room color. We're down to Benjamin Moore's Tuscan Red. Just one wall will be that color, others will be some appropriate version of white.

Here's a little glimpse into things at the moment while I'm sitting here at the dining room table with the laptop. Notice the hurriedly-decorated christmas tree (not my finest work on the lights this year), a Benjamin Moore fan deck in the foreground, actual furniture in our living room, and if you squint you can see the vent hood just outside the window in our front porch (which will relocate itself to the kitchen soon enough). It seems like the more areas in the house we finish, the less room we have for things yet to be installed (such as a vent hood), so those things get relegated to the front porch, back porch and garage.

Here's a shot of the almost-complete dining room in some morning light.

In other exciting news, our guest bedroom is no longer our living room (it's officially furnished and being used as a guest bedroom) and, although neither of us thought it would take this long, we're finally to a point where we can start adding art to the walls on the first floor. Good times.