Our week has basically consisted of Contractors, Cooks and Crystal Meth.  Don’t worry – we’re just on a Breaking Bad Netflix binge, eating our way through Bethesda, one deep fried vegetable at a time, trying to survive our first remodeling project. After lame duck Wednesday, the cabinet installers arrived and began the process of fitting and securing the cabinets.  In a perfect world, the floor is level and the walls are straight and true. If that were the case, the cabinets would be hung in just an hour or two.  In our world, the floor needed a lot of work.  … Continue reading Would you happen to have any red oak flooring?

We absolutely love the kitchen.  The dark cabinets look great with the new stainless appliances and are nicely balanced by the light countertops.  The only problem is, the kitchen only exists as a picture on the internet.  Life in the real world is a whole ‘nother matter.  Israel left last night asking if it was alright if he arrived this morning at 6:30 a.m.  I set the alarm early in preparation for a big day of kitchen remodeling.  Technically, and to his credit, Israel did not actually say he was arriving at 6:30, just if it was OK if he … Continue reading Moving right along!

The kitchen crashers ransacked Woolsey today.  Israel rang the bell at 7:20AM, with cardboard and crowbar in hand.  We spent the better part of yesterday packing and de-cluttering.  Our initial reaction upon seeing the sales photos and then the 10 months of unintentional accumulation kitchen totally cleared out and empty was, “Hmmm, this looks pretty good.”  Is it really just the clutter and disorganization we’re fighting?  Is a new kitchen a total over-kill?  Great time to ask questions like that!  Too late … the train has left the station and there is no stopping it.  But we did make a … Continue reading Ransacking Woolsey

It all started with an electrical problem.  Outlets on half the house weren’t working.  Eric, preferring the family operation to the home improvement corporation, found Chuck Niglio through Nicholson Plumbing, who had recently replaced our furnace and hot water heater.  Chuck came by on a Saturday morning and in about 30 minutes figured out that a light switch in the dining room that did not appear to be connected to any light fixture was actually responsible for tripping all the outlets on the back of the house.  We got to talking about more needs … bathroom and attic fans and … Continue reading We’re fixing the upper oven