Banana Blog » house

Passively, patiently waiting for packages. Many, many packages.

afd — Thu, 15 May 2008 20:11:59 +0000

As usual, there is much house activity at our house. Big guy and I painted a ceiling last night and plan to paint it again tonight. This afternoon, little guy and I have the important job of holding a cabinet vigil. Sometime between two o’clock and six o’clock, the cabinet truck will squeeze its way down our street and the cabinet truck driver will drop off all of our new cabinets. Our job will be to open the door and point to where the mountain of cabinet boxes should rest. More painting will ensue (color ideas anyone?) and a cabinet assembly party is slated for this weekend. I have never attended such a party before but I suspect that it will involve jokes about instruction manual directions, sore fingers, occasional obscenities and possibly pizza. If all goes according to my wishful thinking, our kitchen will really and truly be well on its way to being a working kitchen by within the next four days. Soon, the oven, stove, sink will be in proper position (the sink will be in the kitchen!) and a dishwasher (yes! a dishwasher!!) will be on its way. There is even the possibility that our refrigerator will migrate from the entryway of the house to…the kitchen! As usual, stay tuned.

cherry blossoms in the kitchen

afd — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:37:06 +0000

Having gone to school midway down the eastern seaboard, springtime meant that ice storms that made you shudder at the thought of walking outside were a thing of the past and that heavy humidity that made you shudder at the thought of walking outside were a thing of the future. Exam anxiety was in the air and summer adventures were greatly anticipated. In the midst of all of this, there was always much talk of cherry blossoms. They look as though they’re about to come out! I was a couple of hours south this weekend and they’re in full bloom! Would it be wrong to cut some for my dorm room? And do they really smell as good as people say they do? (To answer the last two questions, Yes, but… and Yes!)

Today I live further north along the eastern seaboard. When I remember to look up from the concrete, evergreens are as likely a sight as flowering deciduous trees. Yet as of today, cherry blossoms in the kitchen. No, I didn’t leave out a verb. The cherry that is in our kitchen is decidedly cut. It now consists of pre-finished four inch tongue and groove planks. Or something like that. It is a pale rose with blond ribbons in it. Before we know it it will be a deep, rich red. We hope that it will be hard enough to support a family that plans to eat many meals at a table above it. We hope that it will be soft enough to give our feet and legs a break as we prepare those meals at counters above it. By tomorrow night it will cover our new subfloor and will have officially made our empty addition space into a space that deserves to be called our new kitchen. Can you smell the sweet excitement?

from the other side of the kitchen

afd — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 02:56:56 +0000

Yes, we’re working toward a new kitchen. It’s been about a year and a half project so far, mostly weekends, mostly unpaid labor and mostly learn as we/they go at that (more on the we/they later). Along the way there has been a baby, 2 new jobs and a bunch of other…activity. There have been very few mishaps, hammered fingers or arguments. It’s going to be very exciting to have a new kitchen. I’m especially looking forward to having the kitchen sink be in the kitchen, to having a dishwasher, better light, cabinets that don’t flake into our dishes and floors that get cleaner after mopping and sweeping. Lots of decisions and countless hours of planning, working and accommodating the work still await us but we’re starting to turn the corner that divides rough from finish. My lessons learned thus far vary depending on what kind of day I’m having, but some consistent themes are beginning to emerge. I’ll write about these soon. As for this blog, my best guess is that it will follow a similar path that our house has. If so, it will be a work in progress with fits and starts. It will be a labor of love and loathing with its coauthors pushing and pulling, grumbling and grinning and ultimately molding it into something that’s strong, that works and that’s actually pretty in its own way.

New kitchen layout

bene — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:33:19 +0000

After much weeping and gnashing of teeth, the kitchen layout is now set in stone. There will be no more changes.

Without further ado, two graphics of said layout. The top-down overhead view. Scale is in feet. This was generated with the abominable Ikea Kitchen Planner software. A drawn out, ranting post on that horrible software may follow at some point.

Here’s the 3d, isometric view.