Check it out! I finally finished the kitchen window. Hooray!!

And, another picture just because I feel like it. A picture of me and my friend Karen (I’m on the left). Karen is a friend from college and I got a chance to see her while I was in Nebraska a couple weeks ago.

Someone recently posted a comment about Elmira Stoves, which reminded me to take a look at the model I’ve been drooling over for at least a year. I’ll never own one, since they’re priced for Hollywood movie stars, but I can dream.

This weekend I finished painting the baseboard in the kitchen. Another project done! I am maintaining my goal of wrapping one thing up in the kitchen every week. And because I’m celebrating every accomplishment, no matter how small, here are some photos:

before

after (the color is correct on this second photo…not sure why the first is so bright)

And a picture of me enjoying our kitchen.

Eric did not finish his project because he went rock climbing–AND while he was climbing his friend’s car engine caught on fire! Looks like a little critter tried to build a nest in the warm engine of the VW van.

Today I finished up the window shelf. Before taking a look, please note that the window is not done being painted - the peach is out of here as soon as the weather is warm enough to pull down the top part of the double-hung to paint white.

I found some herbs at the local cooperative. I’m wondering if I should keep the silver pots, or put plants in them, or replace them with more white pots?
And, today our new house numbers arrived. I’ve been looking forever for something we liked, and found it on ebay! Ordered them from Britain, and they’re here. I’m happy with how they look and recommend the seller: malcolm9990. Looks like he just started selling house numbers through ebay. We can’t put them on the house yet - that red against mint green would be a little - ew -. But, as soon as we paint the house, they’ll be going up!

It’s a frickin’ miracle. I was wondering if the day would come and it finally has. We have tile and grout. The part I was most excited about has come almost 5 months after beginning the project. I really love the way British decorating magazines (my favorite) show small kitchens with unique touches, in particular custom tile. The british really have a love for great tile design — and I thank them for all their ideas and inspiration. Anyway, we now have grout along with the tiles and I couldn’t be happier (although for some reason on the darker blue tiles you can see the mesh backing that is standard with mosaic tiles…I have no idea why that’s the only color that has that effect, but it’s minor overall).

The tile guy comes back tomorrow to seal the grout.

As you can see in the pictures we still have a few things left…but being so near the end is really going to motivate us! I can’t wait to take the final pictures, but it’ll probably be a month. Maybe two because my mom is making Roman blinds for the bump out windows and the fabric she ordered is on backorder.

• Finish “sculpting” and painting the window trim.
• Finish caulking and painting the baseboards.
• Put in the faucet, water purifier, and garbage disposal.
• Put up the range vent hood.
• Put back all the electrical switches and outlets along with their plates.
• Get my supervisor at work to saw the pantry endpanel down to size (he has a table saw and we don’t).
• Get scribe molding from Home Depot to put around base ends.
• Get Roman blinds from mom.
• Figure out what happened to the cafe shutter blind I ordered online - 7 weeks ago! for the sink window.
• Make small shelf and hang from ceiling over sink by two chains on the side and plant herbs to put on shelf and hide ugly view.
• Get stainless steel stove - which probably won’t happen for a year ‘cause we’re out of money and need to save for the art studio we want to put in the backyard next year.
• Touch up paint job in the kitchen.
• Have a party to celebrate our kitchen!!