A little bit of order, finally! Some pics with the countertops in:

And Anna helping Daddy install the garbage disposal:

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Well, we are almost at the end of our frozen food supply, but we are almost at the end of needing it! We now have an unfinished but fairly functional kitchen. The cabinets, countertops, sink, and stove are in, and all the electrical work is done, so we are moving stuff into the kitchen now and preparing to use it. It still needs a floor, some trim, some paint touch-ups, and probably some other stuff I’m not thinking about, but we’re getting it livable for now since the baby is coming in two weeks. The floor may have to wait until after that. I’ll try to post pics with the new countertops soon, when I get them cleared of all the stuff we’ve been unpacking.

My goal for tomorrow is to finish putting stuff away and cook a nice dinner. We’ll see how it goes.

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The cabinets are finished, as of tonight. A couple from our church who have a painting/staining side business did our cabinets for us, and they are gorgeous! The pictures don’t really do them justice, but you can get an idea. They actually are a little darker than the pictures show. (If I would ever take the time to work on photography, I could have gotten more true to the color.)

The countertops go in on Monday morning, the cabinet maker will come put the upper shelves in on Monday afternoon I think, so we should be able to start moving stuff into them Monday night or Tuesday! There’s still work to be done, but it will help a lot to start moving stuff in and clearing out the boxes in David’s office and the family room.

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Cabinets went in today! And they are gorgeous—we are very impressed with the workmanship. If you need cabinets built in the Conway area, let me know and I’ll give you our cabinet maker’s name. They should be stained next week.

Here’s the big empty room ready to be filled (with a guest appearance by Sydney):

Our new alder wood cabinets:

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We have two new additions to our family! Meet Sydney:

And Lexi:

After fostering Bailey for about 6 months and sending him off to his forever home, we decided that we were ready for some dogs of our own again. We wanted two dogs, young adults, small to medium size, who played well together. We told Donna from All About Labs, the rescue we have worked with, what we would be looking for. A few weeks ago, she called us with some information about these girls. They were found as strays (probably dumped) in rural Arkansas by a woman and her family who were attending a family reunion at some cabins. They brought them home, had them vetted, and attempted to find them a home together, preferably locally. A friend of theirs put them in touch with Donna so AAL could help get them adopted out, and Donna immediately thought of us. They came up for a visit a few days later, and we were sold! We had to wait until the loud, messy part of the kitchen work was done first, but we’re at a point now where it’s not too chaotic, so it was time to bring them home.

Their foster family took wonderful care of them. They had them spayed and vaccinated, fed them good quality food, crate-trained them, and treated them as part of their family (which includes 2 other dogs!). They said we were their Conway twins—the husband works from home, the wife is a stay-at-home mom, and they have a 2-year-old daughter. They even use the same dog food that we do, which is kind of an unusual one! We told them to come visit whenever they wanted to see how their girls were doing.

I really didn’t get very many good pictures today, but I’ll try to post some more in the near future. (It’s getting a little hard to get down on the floor and move around quickly enough to get the perfect shot!)

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Inspired by my friend Jenny who took some adorable pictures of her daughter today, I thought, “Why in the world don’t I get the camera out more often and get my child outside and just start taking pictures?” Well, for one thing, it’s been insanely hot, and another, we’ve been insanely busy… but today worked out well on both accounts. Here’s my cutie:

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It has been a loud, messy week so far at our house, but stuff is happening! The wall separating the kitchen and dining room is knocked out, the soffits are removed and the ceiling replaced after it fell down (yes, really), the electrical and plumbing is done, and the new doorway is opened up ready for a pocket door to be installed next week.

Before:

All opened up:

I’m really excited about this part. No longer will you have to walk through the laundry room to get from the kitchen to the family room. It will make a bigger dining area and a nicer laundry room as well. (The family room was the original garage, in case you were wondering why it was laid out that way.)

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If you’re going to be without a kitchen for any length of time, you need to set up a temporary spot with some basic stuff so you can get by for a while. As I mentioned before in my cookathon post, I cooked and froze a lot of stuff that we can reheat in the microwave or toaster oven. It has been nice to have home-cooked meals even with the kitchen being in the state it’s in!

We moved the kitchen table into the family room to serve as a “prep” area, and set up the smaller card table to eat on. The prep area consists of the microwave, toaster oven, knives and cutting boards, paper goods like zip-locks and foil, and a few other things. Under the table I’ve stored things that I shouldn’t need to get to very often but still wanted to have available. (The rest of the kitchen stuff is packed up in David’s office.) Next to the table, we put the pantry with all our food, and next to it a small china cabinet to hold a few dishes, utensils, etc. The fridge is in the laundry room, where it’s been since we moved in. The dishwashing station is in the nearby guest bathroom.

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Ok, I just thought we were committed when I posted the last post. I suppose, if something had happened, we could have just replaced the floor and still had a kitchen. But now we’re really committed! We donated the cabinets, countertops, and appliances to Habitat for Humanity, and they sent someone out to pull it all for us! Yea! Free demo, and the stuff will end up in their “Re-Store” and get reused instead of going in the landfill.

Construction should start first thing Monday morning. We are hiring a contractor do to stuff like knock out the wall, remove the soffits, move the doorway, and do the electrical/plumbing. Then the same guys who textured the ceilings before we moved in will come back, so the kitchen will match the rest of the house. Then the kitchen should be ready to fill with cabinets, countertops, appliances, flooring, and whatever else we haven’t thought of yet.

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I guess you can say we’ve started the renovation! David spent the evening taking up the lovely 80s tile floor, revealing an even lovelier 70s vinyl underneath. Man, what a mess! We are grateful to our neighbor Isaac for loaning us the proper power tool for the job.

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