Kitchen Reno: Let There Be Light

You know, a light at the end of the tunnel. Or, under-cabinet lighting. Whatever.

Either way, things are seemingly starting to come together. Don't get me wrong--we are still not even close to being finished, but we're getting there. Slowly, but surely. You might remember that I hoped to be completely done by the end of March.

HA.

Haha.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

Oh well, that's just the way it goes, right? House projects take three times as long and cost twice as much as you anticipate. Or so I'm told. I don't really like to keep track of such things. :) But since I've at least been documenting timing along the way, the missed "deadline" is difficult to ignore.

Let's move on to some photos and talk about progress made from last week, huh?

A lot of the progress this week was electrical. Our electrician spent a few evenings and a good chunk of Sunday afternoon at our house, wiring outlets, the under-cabinet lights, adding switches, and more. It's nice to finally get all of those stray wires connected to things!

Michael and I also hung the rest of the upper cabinets. What a pain in the ass that process is. But it's done, and we're hopeful that they're all in the right position and won't need to be moved again anytime soon!

Ignore the messes in the cabinets, we're just starting to try to get our lives semi-organized again! But check out that pendant light above the sink. We installed that on Sunday night. That light fixture was something we ripped down way back in August, but didn't put anything new in its place... until now. It feels so amazing to have it up there and looking so nice!

I look at this pic and hear angels singing. Why? Because THE MICROWAVE IS BACK UP OHMYGOD. If you look back at my previous kitchen renovation posts, the over-the-range microwave has been living on the countertop (taking up an ungodly amount of space) for the past several weeks. In order to open and/or close the door, we had to keep tilting the microwave backwards--it was just ridiculous, really. We re-installed it in its rightful place on Sunday afternoon and it was easily one of the most satisfying tasks we've completed so far. Strange, but true.

Because I finally got the second coat of paint on all of the cabinet frames, we were able to put things back in the cabinets. And hey, we put the basement door back on the hinges! Victories.

Then, because my dad was coming into town (he's here!), we CLEANED. Imagine that.

We are about thisclose to being able to start spray painting some cabinet doors, people. I.am.psyched.

Here are how things look with the pendant light and a few of the under-cabinet lights lit up. I'll have to try to take some more pics one of these evenings to better depict the ambiance. :)

What's up next? Well, we're actually going to try to give ourselves a little bit of a break this week while my dad is here. Turn down the pressure to get things done. Relax a little more. We want to tackle some smaller projects if we can, but overall, we're going to try to take things easier than we have been. As much as we want to get things D-O-N-E, it's probably good to cut ourselves a little slack.

More to come.

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Nona

Last weekend, we said goodbye to Michael's grandmother.

Honestly, it was one of those situations in which her death was really a blessing. Nona's health and mental well-being had been declining for the last several years. Her husband--Nono--was her sole caretaker and when he passed away after a short illness two years ago, Nona had to go to live in a nursing home.

It wasn't easy on anybody, but it was especially hard on Nona, of course. It was sad.

We took Nora to see her a few times, the first being just a few days after she was born. This is the only photo we have of her with Nora. On the one hand, I'm disappointed we don't have more; on the other, I'm so happy that we at least have this.

Nona wasn't always "with it." Her short-term memory seemed particularly poor, so she often didn't remember things that had happened recently. She had good days and bad. But for some reason, she almost always remembered that Michael had a baby girl.

Nona was a sweet woman. She was quiet. Like Nono, she was born and raised in Italy, immigrated to Argentina where she raised her own kids, and then moved to the U.S. with her adult children. She, too, never learned the language, so I never really had the opportunity to truly talk to her.

As you can imagine, losing a parent is difficult at any age, so the impact of Nona's death was felt mostly when I saw how it affected my mother-in-law. I have held fast to the belief that Nona is now in a better place, and reunited with Nono. It made the whole situation so much easier to deal with. It's comforting, even.

When I remember Nona, I will remember happier times. The Thanksgivings and Christmases that we all enjoyed together--with Nono, too--in years past. Like true Italians, Nono and Nona loved their wine, especially at the holidays. :)

As we laid Nona to rest on Saturday, I just kept picturing her free of nursing homes and illness and pain--and with Nono. And I couldn't help but smile inside.

May you rest in peace, Nona. And finally be with your true love once again.

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Up and Down

I'm convinced that toddlers are bipolar.

I don't mean to make light of the actual mental condition--I know it's very real, and very serious--but SO ARE TODDLER MOOD SWINGS. Dear lord.

Nora was such an easy baby. Seriously, she almost never cried. But then she turned one, and went all crazy. The tantrums were moderate at first, but they have slowly progressed to be the most ridiculously dramatic episodes of all time.

On Friday night, things escalated to an all new level. Nora had gone a few days with bad naps at daycare, and had been spending a lot of time outside playing. On both Thursday and Friday, she fell asleep in the car during the 10-minute drive home, which is saying a lot because she NEVER does that. I actually left her in the car to sleep for an extra 15-20 minutes or so once we were home in the hopes that it would hold her over until bedtime.

No such luck.

She was crabby as all hell, didn't want to eat dinner, and just generally seemed exhausted, so Michael and I decided to take her up to bed early. As we were attempting to change her diaper and put her pajamas on--notice I said WE because it was a job for two--it was like wrestling an alligator. And then it was like a crazy switch was turned on, because she was literally screaming her head off and going insane. She had this insane look in her eyes and I actually kind of laughed in disbelief and said to Michael, "I think we need an exorcist!"

It was nuts.

No matter what we did--pick her up, put her down, give her toys, give her milk, give her books--she just kept screaming. We finally got her to calm down by putting on a movie for a few minutes, and then she went to bed without issue.

We went through a similar episode yesterday morning, but without the proposed exorcism. She didn't seem QUITE as crazy, but she did scream and cry and roll around on the family room floor for a good 15 minutes because Michael dared to get her out of bed in the morning. She didn't want to get her diaper changed, didn't want to get dressed, didn't want to eat breakfast. You get the gist.

We've been assured by the pediatrician that this is all normal, especially considering that Nora does not have more than a few words. I've done some reading on "manipulative" tantrums vs. "frustration" tantrums and I am damn sure that I can tell the difference.

Nora's manipulative tantrums occur when something is taken away, or when we won't let her do something she wants to do--like run into the street, or stay outside longer. She's crying because she doesn't get her way. With those, we can distract her, or ignore her, and she just gets over it.

The frustration tantrums are a whole different story. Sometimes, they are easy to solve because she'll come running up to me, arms outstretched, just wanting me to pick her up. And when I do, she calms down. We talked to our pediatrician about this, and she said that in these cases, we SHOULD pick her up, because when she's coming to us like that, it's her way of asking us for help. But there are times when picking her up doesn't help, and she just gets completely out of control. I've been reading about ways to deal with this, too, like holding them tight to help them regain that control. We've tried to just let her cry it out like a manipulative tantrum, but it just doesn't work--that's when we end up with her rolling around on the floor for 15 minutes, or charging at me like a crazy person (and when I pick her up, she just keeps screaming).

There have been days that are just hard. I've come to realize that this is just a part of her development, it's a stage to get through. As all parents say, "This too shall pass," and I know it will.

But today? Today was a good day. We have good days (or at least parts of days) frequently. That's the funny thing: As challenging as she has been lately, she's also been the most fun that she has ever been. As I've mentioned, we've been outside a lot, and she is just eating it up. She loves to swing and play with chalk on the driveway. She walks around aimlessly, and points at all of the dogs in the neighborhood while saying "TESSA!" (Yes, she thinks all dogs are "Tessas.")

Nora has a sense of humor. She laughs when people burp. She smiles so big that her eyes close.

In short, she is amazing in every sense of the word. Amazingly difficult. Amazingly smart. Amazingly sensitive. Amazingly beautiful, inside and out.

It's a rollercoaster, but it's one that I'm thankful every day to be on.

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Kitchen Reno: The Grass is Greener

...and so are the walls.

It's been two weeks since I last updated you, and well, things are a lot different. But they're also largely the same in that they are STILL A FREAKING MESS.

I gotta say: We're six weeks in and I am so.over.this. Which is unfortunate, since we're most definitely not going to meet my initial deadline of March 31 to have everything done. In fact, I don't think it's going to be even close. Ugh.

But, instead of focusing on the neverending nature of this project, let's just take a look at everything that has been accomplished over the last two weeks. First, I have to admit that I have not taken a whole lot of photos. I don't know, I guess in my state of being tired of it all, I got too lazy to even document our work. And then I meant to take photos in natural light this weekend and never got around to it, so... I just finally took some tonight.

Obviously, one of the biggest things--which I already mentioned in the title and beginning of this post--is the GREEN! The walls have COLOR, people. And we LOVE it. Needless to say, after the great paint debate of 2012, we bit the bullet, got the paint tinted, and we hit the nail on the head. It is exactly the green that we wanted. THANK GOODNESS. (It is Sherwin Williams "Clary Sage," by the way.)

Basically, there's just been a whole lot of painting going on around here the last few weeks. After the walls, it was more cabinets. We deglossed, sanded, and cleaned all of the upper cabinets, and then I primed them. Then, we finally chose a cabinet paint color (a soft/creamy white called "Paper Mache" from Benjamin Moore), and I've got at least one coat of paint on all of the base cabinet frames.

Except these over here. These have two coats (so they're done). And hey, look at them! They're back in place on either side of the stove. That was an accomplishment in and of itself--to return the kitchen back to its rightful layout. Hooray for having more counterspace back!

I've also painted two coats of the cabinet paint on the soffits. We plan to add crown moulding around the top of the soffits, and since they're painted to match the cabinets, they should trick the eye a bit and make things look a bit bigger and more open than if we had painted the soffits green like the walls.

Last night, we did something really big--we started hanging those upper cabinets back on the walls. And let me tell you, that's a real bitch. Especially because it was just the two of us. Michael basically had to support the weight of the cabinets himself (and some of them are giant and HEAVY!) while I checked for levelness, spacing, pulled the wires for the cabinet lights through the holes we drilled, etc. It was not an easy process, and my screaming muscles were proof when I woke up this morning. We have a few more to hang up, but we have to wait for the electrician to come to wire through the back of the one that goes above the microwave before we continue on down the wall.

I cannot WAIT to get that microwave back up on the wall, too. Holy moly, that thing is a monster when it sits on our countertops like that.

Oh! On Friday, we also used our brand new compressor and nail gun to put the window trim back on above the sink. And then we caulked and painted that; good times.

See? So there's been progress. I suppose there's actually been lots of it.

At this point, our short-term goal is to get the rest of the cabinets up on the walls and get them painted (the upper ones are only primed right now) so we can put stuff back into the cabinets. We still won't have doors for a while--we've barely even started prepping them for primer at this point--but at least the kitchen will be fully functional, with STORAGE. I swear we have countertops underneath all of the mess you see in the photos. We just have nowhere to PUT anything.

My dad is coming into town to stay with us for nearly a week, starting on March 27. That means we have just a little more than a week to get things into shape, and we're determined to get 'er done. I'll keep you posted!

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Outside

I'm afraid we've created a monster.

We've had pretty great weather this week. Every night after work, we've taken Nora outside to play. The only problem (if you can call it that) is that she LOVES it--a little too much, maybe. The minute we get home, she's whining/reaching for the door/begging to go outside. We happily oblige, but sometimes it's necessary to--I don't know--drop our things off in the house, change our clothes, get dinner started, or pee. God forbid!

It's tough to teach an 18 month old patience, especially when they can't comprehend reason.

Anyway. A couple of nights ago, I finally put away the iPhone and got the real camera out. I also unburied my 50mm f/1.8 lens, which--although my favorite--I haven't used in quite some time. I chased Nora around in the front and back yards, trying desperately to get some good photos of our girl. And then, I edited them! I took a night off from kitchen stuff to enjoy playing around with pics. The results are the photos here in this post. Not perfect (hello, limb chops!), but it was the best I could do with a fixed lens and a never-stops-moving toddler.

This little one enjoys being outside so much that she doesn't even want to sleep. Or bathe. Last night, she threw an absolute FIT when I took her shoes off, took her upstairs, and gave her a quick bath. She normally loves baths, so it was a different experience to have her screaming and fighting me (I even had to call in reinforcements--Michael!) the whole time.

{Reaching for a ball that Daddy threw way up into the sky}

We didn't move into our house until mid-August of last year, and at that point, we were in a mad rush of house projects to make the place liveable. We didn't have much time to be outdoors, and even when we did, it was tough because Nora was not yet walking, but didn't like to be in the grass for extended periods of time. So, this will be our first time to really take advantage of the benefits of having a house. With a yard. And a fence. And a driveway.

{Waving bye-bye to Daddy}

We have big plans for a spring and summer filled with cars/bikes, balls, bubbles, slides, swings, chalk, and a baby pool. And (hopefully) eating things straight out of our soon-to-be little backyard garden.

Yesterday, as I drove home after picking up Nora from daycare, I glanced in the back seat to see her SLEEPING, wisps of her hair gently moving in the breeze flowing in through my half-open window. It's only a 10-minute drive from daycare to our house, which is never enough time for her to fall asleep anymore. The last time that happened? Last summer.

I asked Mary whether Nora had actually napped yesterday, and she said that she did, but only for 45 minutes. She had been furious with Mary when she brought her inside to nap, and when she woke up, all she wanted to do was go back out.

We have an outdoor-loving girl.

And it is still only March. We have 7+ months ahead of us to enjoy the great outdoors.

I can't wait to see how our adventures unfold.

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