Fire!

This December, Dan climbed onto the roof to install the 'RS Exhausto Chimney Fan' Why? Well, because every time we attempted a fire, smoke would billow into our house, making all contents smell like we live in a bbq pit.
He watched the weather daily, waiting for a day that didn't rain, freeze or snow. So, when the day came, he called Bret and the two ran up and down the stairs, up and down the ladder, installing the fan and running the electricity:


Dan was delighted to find that the gang box was already large enough to accomodate a new switch for the fan. Fire!!

Cats and Constructinon: a perfect pairing

Cats are such giving creatures, and I must take this opportunity to highlight all the help we've received during our various projects this year:

Here's Diego 'helping' with the painting of the living room

Torpedo and Ben "assisting" with the unwrapping of light fixtures

Diego "helping" hold the stove down

Ben "helping" to also keep the stove in place

Thanks, kitties!

Kitchen Finishing Touches: knobs and lights

With appliances and cabinets in place, we have a few finishing touches to add to the kitchen. For me, this part was ridiculously fun, after all of the messy work. First, we found these excellent knobs made by our Swedish friends for all of our cabinets:


Next, Dan installed our light fixtures, which we found at the Schoolhouse Electric.

These fixtures are beautiful!

Special Guests! The Kitchen gets humming!

After finishing with the metal cabinets, we had a few special guests to help us with the next two projects: installing wood cabinets (we have a mix of both wood and metal cabinets, you'll see, it worked!) and installing a range hood.
For the cabinets, we had two special guests, Connor and Ken! They got them up in no time. Thanks, guys! Look at how handy Connor is!

I think I scared Ken when I took this picture!Next came the range hood installation. So, here comes the muscle!

Bret helped Dan by lifting the hefty hood in place so that Dan could then make a tracing of where the hood would exhaust to outside, meaning he cut a whole in our house!!!

Heeeerree's Danny!

Thhhhatttt's all, Folks!

North Dakota Metal Cabs- a lot of before and after

These cabinets from ND that my cousin Bob and his wife Niki so generously gave to us are just plain cool, so I'm just going to post a whole bunch of pictures of them of before and after:


The cabinets were in fantastic condition, with very little rust.

You can see on the cabinet on the left the fade work in the paint, it was very cool. I think my uncle Milo had taken these to an auto body shop to be painted. We liked the green, but a paint job updated them for our more modern kitchen.
Goodbye Green! Hello, white:

This is a view looking down on a lower cabinet. What I love about these cabinets are these huge, deep drawers. Everything fits, evening funnels and measuring cups!

Ready powdercoating, who did the paint job, saved EVERY little screw and hinge. They did an AMAZING job. I couldn't believe that they had saved all of the hardware. And I'm glad they did, where would have we found replacement parts for these cabinets!

Doors, ready to be reassembled:

And the first cabinet to be installed!

Metal Cabinets from North Dakota

These are cabinets that my Great and Uncle Milo and Hedy had in their farmhouse in Fullerton, North Dakota. My cousin and his wife and kids are now rehabbing the farmhouse, and graciously parted with these cabinets. My other cousin and my dad graciously drove them to Chicago. Here they are:


'Ready Powder Coating' is a place outside Chicago that does powder coating, primarily for motorcycles, bike frames, etc. Dan and I wanted to powder coat the cabinets white, to match the kitchen. A guy named Dan (good name)and his mom (named Rose, same name as my grandma! Good sign) and dad run the place, and they were so amazing- they saved every little piece and labelled them before paintingthe cabinets-

super service!!Here they are after:

Lots of updates!

So, I haven't posted since August- Take a look at what's going on at our house:
Kitchen!
This is what the kitchen looked like the day we started to take it apart:


First was the demo of the cabinets- Goodbye, purple!


Then Dan cut into the ceiling to wire electricity for light fixtures

The kitchen floor was half tile, have wood. So, we started with smashing up the tile

This is what our kitchen looked like after breaking it apart- good times.


Elaine and Jim peeled up the rest of the floor- which was wood, and hauled it away-Thank you!!


It was time to finish electrical, mud and prime walls, and make the flourescent orange disappear. Here's a picture showing the walls before they are done, and will be the last of orange wall!


With the walls done, the wood floors were next to be installed. After this, the cabinets are next!