The Appliances

 

The one room I had a clear vision of what I wanted in was the kitchen. Specifically, I knew I wanted the Viking suite of appliances, more specifically the 60" range with the full size double ovens underneath. Year ago when I was still dreaming of the kitchen, the stove was going to be this awesome pumpkin color (yes a beautiful orange). However, once we were actually ready to pull the trigger on the actual stove, they only had a more muted orange, cinnamon, available, so we went for stainless. (Some are probably breathing a sigh of relief). It took 4 people to move this sucker into the house, and once in place, I posted a gazillion pictures of her on Facebook. Here's the stock photo:

 

And she's just as gorgeous in person. We also got a Viking fridge. Well, it's branded Viking, but actually Whirlpool. Viking had a bunch of built in models, but we really didn't have the wall space for it, and this seemed to do the job just fine. There's a water dispenser on the inside, and way more space than our old side by side. Again just a plain stock photo below.

And because we lacked the wall space, we decided to get a drawer microwave for the island. Again this is branded Viking, but actually a Sharp. The sales guy really tried to convince us to get the steam oven microwave combo. He wasn't sure that this would be enough for us.  Finally, I looked at him and said, "I just ordered a 60" range to cook on, what do you think I'd actually use the microwave for outside of heating up food?"  There are a lot of so so reviews on drawer microwaves, and we haven't used it enough to give our full review. So once again, the stock photo.

 

 And finally, the dishwasher. Certified by the company I work for, I knew exactly which one I wanted. It took us a while to figure out the rinse aid ratio, but now it works like a dream.

So there it is, the basis of our kitchen. I think outside the range, we're within a normal amount of ridiculousness, right?

Year in Review

It's January so I think that a looking back post is still totally OK. But when I think of all things in 2013, all I can think of is "we made it." Whenever someone asks me, "how's Anika doing?" my response, without delay is, "she's alive and well." Because seriously folks that in itself is a huge accomplishment. Ladies and gentleman, our baby made it to her first birthday, our three dogs are still in one piece, and Bob and I are still very much in love. What more could we we ask for?

2013 is a big blur with kitchen remodeling (still on-going), many, many sleepless nights (occasionally still happening), crazy work projects and schedules (still on-going), all dogs having some sort of medical woes (carrying over into 2014). We've had lots of people at the Pitt vising, and we've visited a lot of places, but somehow, I feel like we really didn't get to spend as much time as we wanted to with everybody. And I feel like that will be a theme in this coming year(s) as well so note to self, really make the most out of the moments you spend with friends and treasure the moments with your tiny little families.

To  a little less crazy 2014, a finished kitchen and a resolution I feel very confident in, "Keeping my spleen in 2014."

The Tile

We spent the majority of the summer looking for tile. We went to the Tile Shop, Home Depot, Lowes, Builders Carpet (they sell tile), Tile Express, the entire tile compound out in Farmington. It took FOREVER, but we were tiling 600 sq. ft. so we may as well make it worth our while.


I wanted a large (12 x 24) tile laid in a brick pattern. I thought I would go with a neutral, but the more tans and browns we brought in to the house the more I hated it. So we went with a slate look in ceramic and I think it's pretty beautiful...now to find a paint color.


Ignore the mess, bask in the beauty of the tile!

Kitchen Remodel

So we've decided to dive into the kitchen project head first. It was time for us to finish the last big project in the house. The first step was finishing the ceiling/walls and fixing all of the water damage. You may remember from an earlier post that we moved the stairs a couple of years back, so we have a pretty big space to work with. In my mind I knew exactly what I wanted to do in this room, but when it came time to select things, I had a really hard time.

Step 1: . Fixing the fireplace. Our old fireplace was surprisingly installed incorrectly. All the vent holes were tiled over, and it was a gas fireplace that they used to burn wood. We never actually used it, the whole thing looked really scary, so we decided to just replace the thing in it's entirety.

This was totally a Bob project. He called the fireplace people, picked out the type we were getting and I basically rubber stamped the whole thing. We've got a gas burning fireplace, with radiant heater. Even though we won't use the heating function very much, it's gas heat with a battery starter and if our power goes out, it'll give us an alternate source.

So we did this back in early June and felt like we had made a huge step towards the kitchen. And not surprisingly, the fireplace has just been sitting there, unused. And for a while, a long while, our kitchen project went on hold.

Step 2: Coming up with an actual design so we could start filling in the pieces.  So we headed over to Fingerle Lumber and worked with Tom Lane to come up with a design. Below is the top down view of our space. Starting from the top of the picture:

• Door on far left is the pantry, 
• Next door is for the mud room
• Next door is for the basement
• And the french doors are for the study

You can't see the fire place in this picture. But on the bottom right, where there are the built in china cabinets, in the middle, that's where the fireplace is. So we plan on a seating area in front of the fireplace... but that's super far away.

Step 3: The kitchen tile. Oh how I hate picking out tile.

Walking!

The Baby Grand Piano Room

We got this really great piano for Ani from a co-worker. It's made out of wood a little out of tune, just like a real piano. Bob says it's as close as we're going to get to the baby grand....I say it's a small step.

It's baby alright!

Finished! 2012 Photobook.

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