Evolving ideas

So the electrician came yesterday and started wiring things up. He's not done and we found out that he's kinda working us in when he's not on this really huge job that he's also doing. That's ok with us, it gives us time to ponder things. Like not getting that tankless water heater that we were going to get. We just decided against it, it's not really worth the cost to us so we scrapped the idea. If we had gas piped to the house then it would be a different decision entirely, but we don't so that's that. So back to pondering things. We are somewhat masters of using almost every inch of available space. When you have a relatively small house and a bunch of people and lots of things, you get creative on how to organize and store things. Let's look back at out very first act of creating usable space from "dead" or hard to access space, the coffee bar.

Here's the before and after on that. The cavity for the coffee bar existed before, but it was accessed from inside the pantry. As you can see, (refer to the finished picture or this description will get weird) it's not a terribly deep space, but it's wide. When you put that into perspective with the previous version, that makes it narrow and long so basically you could fit your arm in there but not the rest of your body so it made this really awkward space to say stash a broom, have it fall to the back, then you couldn't reach it without serious effort. We have neighbors who have put shelves in that area and that would have been a great solution except that the idea of a coffee bar was super appealing to us. Also, if you do shelves for that entire area, you still have the issue of not reaching what's in the back and if you didn't make them go all the way back you're wasting space so whatever, we made a coffee bar. This has been a fabulous feature for us as it frees up counter space in the kitchen and we think that it is visually appealing. We still have plans to trick it out a little more but for now this is what it's like. (See Henry there in the corner of that pic? His "desk/office" is right there for now so he's really digging the coffee bar ;) LOL)
So what other space saving/space using plans do we have now?? I have that answer along with a poorly photo shopped proposed "after" shot. When the framing was done upstairs to create the hallway, it created a dead space between two of the walls. We've been racking our brains trying to come up with ideas for that space so that it's not wasted. Henry to the rescue when he said that it would be great to put shelves in, and not only shelves for his office, but shelves for the bathroom. His office shares the wall with the back of the tub (complete with its own toilet! - just overlook that) So anyway, if he has shelves or custom drawers in there, he could put books or cds or photos or all of those random cables and usb sticks and such in there. His office is really small and that little bit of extra space for all of the little things that clutter up everything could make a huge difference. The area between the walls is only like 12" wide, but it's deep so that's when the idea for the bathroom shelves came in so that we could utilize all of the dead space. I didn't photoshop his side, but I did photoshop the bathroom side so in theory it could look something like this----------------------------------------------------------->
It could be a space for towels or wash cloths or makeup or extra toilet paper (in baskets) or something else pretty and decorative. It could also help alleviate that jumbled mess that's under the bathroom sink. By both rooms sharing the space, it ensures that the shelves won't bee too deep to reach things that go to the back of them. So there you have it, our latest brainstorm and plan to utilize all of the extra space that we can. ~Kellie~

No news isn't necessarily good news

Some of you have asked how things with the house are going, and the answer is that they really aren't. The only thing that has been done since my last blog post is that the contractor came out himself and put shingles on the house portion of the addition so that water would stop pouring in when it rained. Apparently there was some issue with the actual roofer and blah blah blah, he couldn't get him to come out and he (the contractor) didn't want to leave us hanging so he and one other guy came out and roofed it. The porch still isn't roofed but Henry and I did get up there and put tar paper on it so it's not raining under the porch anymore. As far as the construction, that's really all that there is to report other than the funny call we got from the permit office but that has all been straightened out. The city didn't want to give him one permit for $50k, but they'd gladly give him two permits for $24,999 for a small fee and he could go on his merry way and carry on with his plans. That's just stupid and another way for the city to make money. I feel bad for him, but welcome to Franklin I suppose.
Sort of related to the renovation, Henry and I finally ordered the new stove and dishwasher that we've been eying for like ten months. We were told that black Friday would be the lowest prices that there would be all year so we patiently waited for that day. The dishwasher was on sale, the stove was not (wth??), but we got $50 off for buying two appliances. That does not equate to a sale price on the stove but at least it's something. They did tell us that if it went on sale during the next thirty days that they'd refund the difference so there's that. To top it off we will get some cheap gas on our next fill up because of that whole rewards program thing so all in all I suppose it's not too bad. Our purchasing experience was overly complicated and drawn out as usual (Home Depot, when will we ever learn??) but we eventually got it paid for and left the store. They will not be installing it because the laminate does not go under the dishwasher and makes a small lip so they won't install. Again, wth?? It's like a quarter of an inch and doesn't interfere with removing the dishwasher. Ask me how I know, go ahead. It's not a big deal because we know how to install it, but it's still ridiculous. It's also ridiculous that they don't charge you sales tax on the dishwasher if you have it installed because it's considered a "service" and therefore not taxable but since we aren't having it installed we had to pay sales tax on it. I guess that makes that fifty dollars off for buying two appliances irrelevant. The install was $69 extra which is basically the same as the sales tax that we paid so whatever.

So, who wants pictures?!?!?!?

This is the dishwasher that we got. The controls are at the top so little fingers don't push all the buttons and melt all my tupperware. The picture on the right? See those little blue things? Those are special bottle/glass cleaner wands that fit up in the container and shoot water into the bottom thus removing the sludge of chocolate milk or whatever else might have been lurking in there.

Below is the stove that we got. It has a smooth top, five burners (do you still call them burners if there is no flame?), and double ovens. Just look at all the pizzas I can cook in there at a time! I have no idea what I will do with all of the pans that used to live in the bottom drawer but I smell another kitchen remodel to figure it out. *Note: We actually do know what to do with them but it really is another project for another day. I'm super glad that when I boil over stuff, it won't go all down in the eyes resulting in a tear down and scrubbing of parts of the stove that normal humans are not meant to see. I've had a smooth top before so I'm aware of the whole no cast iron on them, don't use scrubby pads, etc. so no harping on that in the comments. I'm also super stoked that the elements in the stove are covered so there's no crazy mess around them either. I think that a stove with two ovens is a good choice for us because we have a bunch of kids. We can do two pizzas and breadsticks at the same time, or dinner and dessert, or just use the small one on top when it's just Henry and I. In any case, I'm really excited to have a new stove and dishwasher since I have had the same ones for like thirteen years and they weren't that great to begin with. I know that that's probably not a long time to have (cheap) appliances, but it's two marriages, two houses, and four kids later and I'm thrilled for the change. I'm glad that I got to pick out what I wanted and didn't just choose the cheapest ones in the store because they were functional (and cheap). So there you have it, that's all that's new with us. ~Kellie~