Houth, houth

All of the kitchen, desk, bathroom and laundry room cabinets are in place now. The countertops and sinks have been installed. All of the hardware (lights, door knobs, cabinet pulls, etc) have been added. The crown molding and light rail molding have been added to the cabinets. The plumbing fixtures are all installed as well. D, N and I stopped by the house last night and this morning (while our house was being looked at by potential buyers) and talked to the painter for a little bit while he worked. We actually didn't talk as much as N watched. The painter uses a humongous roller to paint the walls and N is fascinated by the process and the sound the rollers make. The painter said he is really busy with work right now so he is going to work on our house all weekend in order to get everything done. He ended up working until 8pm last night! He and his crew are painting upstairs first and are working their way down. This morning they were painting the stairwell. I didn't get to see it because N and I were waiting in the car while D was inside, but D said he saw enough to know that he is very glad we don't have to paint the stairwell ourselves. I imagine it would a dangerous job to do. I would guess that they're going to have to get scaffolding out to paint in the foyer where the walls are as high as two stories. I'm sure the painters have seen it all and can figure out a way to get to the really high spots.

Below are pictures of the kitchen, island, lockers, and our desk that is located opposite the breakfast nook. I am so happy with the kitchen. This is strange, but the kitchen actually seems bigger now that all the cabinets and countertops are in. There was a time in the beginning of the building process that D and I considered removing the desk from the kitchen/breakfast nook. We were afraid it was going to eat up too much space. One day we took a large folding table and chairs to the new house to try to get an idea for the size of the space. We then gathered up scraps of lumber to simulate the size of the desk and kitchen cabinets. We really feared the room wasn't going to large enough to handle all the cabinets we ordered. The exercise of taking the table to the house must have convinced us everything was going to fit because we didn't change our order. We didn't remove the desk. I'm really glad we didn't. I think we'll get a lot of use out of it. Take a look at the pictures below. After workign through several rough drafts we agreed on a design. This is the final product. If you look at the lower cabinets you will notice a large opening on the right and left of the desk. A mini fridge will sit in the left hand opening. The right hand opening will serve as leg room for anyone sitting at the desk. We'll have to buy a stool for the desk. We had to mount the counterops at stool height to accomodate the height of the mini fridge. I foresee some serious baby proofing in this area. I can just see N getting into the fridge for "nacks" and into the cabinets to push the buttons on the computer....

N really enjoy our trips to the house. He sits in the back seat of the car (in his car seat of course) and says "House, house, house" all the way to the house. He has this cute little Thumper-like lisp when he says his s's. He also tends to develop a southern accent after saying house for the twentieth time. His new favorite thing about the "houth" is the stairs. Now that they are carpeted he loves to go "up, down, up, down..." except he gets up and down mixed up. Such a cutie!!