doors & drawers

what a great surprise!

i came home to find all the doors and drawers had been installed.  a lovely parting shot before i head out to new york tomorrow.  let me share it with you:

north wall, with left side drawers that are crazy wide. imagine opening one drawer and seeing pretty much everything you have to store all at once. that's how big these things feel.  i had originally been wondering how to decide which drawer will hold what. Now, i can have one drawer pretty much hold everything. a great time saver! 

same wall, different view. same crazy big drawers on the left side: 

here we have the south wall. i notice the stove has not been moved back in place. what's wrong? nothing, just kidding. it's in the living room, having a conversation with the fireplace about favorite local hot spots. 

the twinkie  pantry!  what's inside???

oopps, sorry, nothing yet. hope you aren't hungry.

and finally, toe kicks are in the early stages.  wow. there was really a lot done today. not to mention the trim work and pocket door work that he's done. oh, did i just mention that? didn't mean to. that is for another installment....

have a great week! try to stay cool!

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groutchy

today was grout day. it didn't last very long, and i was gone for nearly all of it, but i'm pretty sure it happened. at least, at first glance, i figured it was done. 

(have you noticed the stove was moved out again? i've lost count, but i believe it's up to about a thousand times...)

closer inspection, though, made me think otherwise....

so, based on the lessons of my last entry, and my new found appreciation for asking for however much perfection there is, i will be asking for more of it. whatever they've got. hand it over. 

I have to admit, i see everyone doing all kinds of things, and i'm tempted to dive in and do it myself.  i've already changed my locks and door hinges (barely),  and painted my front closet. but i guess since i've already hired them to do their job, i should just let them do it. what can i say? i'm a joiner. 

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here

things are happening! i'm glad.

this weekend, when no one was looking, i put some of the front panels in, just to see how things are coming along. take a look:

pretty nice, eh? the counter doesn't actually have that religious glow to it, by the way. but could my annonymous omnipotent being be trying to communicate to me through the counter photo? i will have to consider that as a possibility.

i am liking the henrybuilt system.  the door panels slip into place really easily, and the drawers have a special pneumatic type of system so they carefully glide into place during the last inch or two. I'll have a video of it in another installment.

the day was largely spent putting these little side panels in place. another little detail that will ultimately make a big difference. 

and then there is the matter of the counter. now, i love this counter, but there were some little teeny tiny things that bugged me. so the question came up, what degree of perfection should i expect from these installers? and come to think of it, how many degrees of perfection are there? i didn't have the answers but nathan did. so he has asked them for more perfect perfection and you know what? he got it. so some repairs are being made even as i type this! i guess the lesson here is, since we don't know how many degrees of perfection we can expect, we should just try to get as many as we can. the photo shows one area that will need some touching up. 

some new tools arrived for today's events.  i give you table saw:

a pretty basic element, a "must have" in every tool wardrobe. essentially, the little-black-dress of the tool world. 

not sure what we have here. a compound saw, perhaps? it requires its own special stand and believes it can do anything, although we all know it has its limitations. maybe it is a scientologist. 

tomorrow is grout-the-floor day. celebrate appropriately!

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finally

okay, everybody! take a look. the counters are in and i must say they are quite nice. not too thick, not too dark, not too glossy and not too high. just right.  i had no idea concrete could be light in color. it has rice hulls in it, which i guess means it is vegetarian-friendly, as opposed to the omnivorous-friendly counters, which are made out of suede.

here we have the counters modeling with the stove. they are saying, 

"how do we look?" 

fabulous!

the north side, with whack-a-mole re-installed. 

here is a cozy little corner. what shall i put there? maybe my easy-bake oven.

now this is important: the counters must be properly sealed and then maintained. kind of like a pet that i will have to take care of for the rest of my life. but i will be able to leave the counter alone all day without it barking, and i don't have to take it for walks (unless i want to).  so it is really not that bad. 

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counter production

there is good news on the horizon, gentle readers! and it has to do with counters.

now, there are counters for geigers and counters for beans.

there are drugs for passing over counters and clocks for going counter-wise.

but mine will be none of these.

there are counter-weights and counter-productive things to do,

counter-intelligence,  and counter-suits, 

candy counters and coin counters,

counter-height chairs, counter-depth stoves and there is even 

count dracula.

but mine will not be any of these, either.

mine will be the real deal, honest-to-goodness, american-born kitchen counter. the best of all the counters. and it will finally be installed on thursday, putting an end to all this ghastly blogging silence.

hooray! can't wait!

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