Bars off!

Today I spent some more time on the kitchen design. I can see why people hire designers. After getting the layout down, the work is only half done. There's all sorts of little things to figure out such as in a given space, do you want a cabinet with doors or drawers? Two narrow cabinets or one wide? Does the top and bottom line up? Which doors should be glass? Where will you keep vitamins? Spices? Fruit? Cookbooks?

The contractors were working on prepping the walls for paint and installing an attic access door. I also asked them to demolish the surround on two closets. I want the closet to have no enclosure at all, and then you can install sliding doors that go from floor to ceiling. It allows easy access to the space to the left, right and top that is usually behind the wall surrounding the closet. Since we have limited storage, it will be important to use it all wisely.

It's a good thing we're remodeling now! One window fell apart yesterday, and the garage door quit today. We have an old fahioned door you open by hand, and when it's all the way up it stays up. Well, the hinge quit today and the door no longer stays up by itself. The contractor cut me a piece of wood to use as a prop, and when we went to prop the door open, the wood went right through it! We will be replacing the door, but I don't know when we'll get to it.

This is my custom-cut 2x4 garage door prop! I had to label it "Do not throw away" so it wouldn't get mistaken for scrap.


Here's the nearly perfect rectangle in the garage door where the prop stick went right through it.



I called the plumber today to schedule him to be there for the rough inspection (he has to do a test for/with the inspector). Unfortunately, he's not able to do it for a week due to the large block of time required (you get a 4-hour window for the inspection, so he has to wait around). I had wanted to do it Friday, but this is the best we can do. Hopefully we can keep working around it and it won't hold us up.

The BEST thing about today is the bars are off the windows! Yay! The neighbors have all been asking me when they are coming off. The house looks so much better already both from the inside and outside.

The improved look from the outside: