Progress, finally!

StalinBenester readers might have wondered why we haven't posted any new pictures of our kitchen project for a couple of weeks. We can tell you that until today, we hadn't made a ton of progress. The only major development was having the asbestos abatement company come out a week and a half ago to take out the old floor, and after that, Stacy's parents helped scrape off the last of the wallpaper.

However, today we took a major step forward with the help of Bob and Ron. We have a tile floor! They are in the middle of laying the tile right now and we are so happy with how it looks.



In other news, we've got some beautiful hibiscus in our front garden and we just shook some Critter Be Gone around the tomato plants in our latest attempt to keep the squirrels and chipmunks away. We hope that will do the trick!

Demolition -- The Olive Garden Day

I call today "Olive Garden Day" because of the lovely smell wafting through what was -- and what will be -- our kitchen. We learned that the only way to get off the old wallpaper was to thoroughly soak the paper and all of its under layers with our vinegar and water mixture. Colin is a wallpaper removing pro, developing his "patented spray and spread" technique that makes scraping the paper like cutting through butter. Here are a few before and after shots -- I meant to get some of the scraping action, but frankly got so caught up in the task that I forgot to take some pictures. No worry, we've still got another whole section to take off.

I also can't believe we've been an aunt and uncle for two whole weeks and we haven't blogged yet about our niece, Taylor. We spent some time in Minneapolis last weekend and got to spend some time with her and her exhausted but excited parents. You can see she's already taken with her Uncle Colin, and he's pretty taken with her.

Demolition Day #2

Thanks to Bob, we got all of the old cabinets out of the kitchen, along with the sink and dishwasher. He also gets the award for taking on the most unpleasant task of cleaning below and behind the stove. (Colin says: Yuck!) What would we do without him? And let us know if you have any restaurant recommendations or tips with cooking with a microwave and electric fry pan -- we've got limited options for the next few weeks.

We're pretty happy with the progress we've made so far and now we're on to a couple more steps in the project. Tomorrow, we'll dust off our wallpaper scrapers and get that off a couple of the walls. We also think we've settled on a tile, but we have to wait for our sample to get tested by the State Hygiene Lab to be sure there's not any asbestos under there.

On to Wednesday, Day 3!

Demolition Day No. 1

We spent a couple of days in Minneapolis getting relaxed and ready to come back to Madison to start our kitchen remodeling project. The first day was pretty major, with us losing half a wall.

Here are some before and after shots:















Next on the list are tearing out the cabinets and replacing the floor...good thing we have about two weeks to get the kitchen ready for the cabinets to be installed.