Drum Role Please...

Hooray for a completed kitchen!!! As of last Friday, we had a functioning kitchen here at the Huinker household, and I could not be more in love.

The last four weeks may have been some of the longest of my life. An absolute mess of a house coupled with the last few very stressful weeks of school was certainly not easy, but we survived...and, it was totally worth it.

Much thanks to my mom, Mark, and Thyme for visiting this weekend and helping put the kitchen back in total working order. My mom had much patience with me as I stressed about putting everything in the perfect location, and she even scrubbed the floor on her hands and knees...twice. Mark and Thyme did much entertaining of the girls, something that allowed way more work to be done than otherwise would have been. I don't want to think about what the house would still be looking like without them. We have wonderful family all around...without Pat and Roger's open house and kitchen, this whole process would have been nearly impossible. Thank you everyone!!!

A complete view.

Our new desk area...this used to be a closet in the room behind the desk. There were two closets in the office, so we didn't hesitate to eliminate one in exchange for this new area.

Eat-in island (it's dark espresso brown even though it looks black in the pictures).

Pass-through into dining room. This used to be the wall with our kitchen stove-top and microwave. One thing you can't see well in the pictures is the distressing in the cabinet "creases" for lack of a better word. It's a deep brown - to match the island and the crown molding.

Pass through from dining room perspective. It's amazing how much bigger the dining room now feels with this window. We will definitely use the dining room much more often now.

Complete view from dining room.

So there you have it... I'm realizing now it'd be fun to have before and after's side-by-side. I'll have to do that sometime - and sometime might actually be soon now that school's out! Other than a few odds and ends - trim, tile grout in entryway/hallway, completed backsplash - everything is nearly finished. Bon appetite!

Getting Closer...

We're anxiously awaiting the installation of our cabinets - but here's where we're currently at. The flooring looks amazing although we had a slight hold up as we ran out of the smaller tiles. Thankfully, Travis's (our flooring guy) co-worker was up in La Crosse and was able to pick up more for us. Hopefully on Wednesday, Travis will finish tiling the dining room. The kitchen, however, is ready for cabinets. I'm super happy with how everything is turning out!

The area in the upper left will not be tiled as it'll be under cabinets...So will the area in the upper right, but that was tiled completely in order to start the pattern in a straight place.

Close up of the tile pattern.

All in a Week's Work

Yesterday marked exactly one week of construction, and, wow, has a lot happened. The inspector approved our wiring Monday morning allowing our crew to get in and start working about noon. By the time I got home from work all the sheet rocking was up and they were busy mudding and taping. Wow, they work hard! Olivia was in awe as Aaron and Chris were up on stilts working on the ceiling. When I asked her if she wanted to go play outside, she told me she wanted to stay in watch. :) Tuesday and Wednesday only one crew member worked on finishing up the sheet rocking and also spraying a light texture on the walls.

Today, Thursday, both our flooring and painting guys will begin.

Plan of action:
Thursday = underlayment of floor, primer to walls/ceiling
Friday = laying of tile, finish color on walls
Saturday = finishing of tile

Desk area is a bit hard to tell in this paragraph, but it's set into the wall by the door.

It Has Begun - Days 2-4

Day 2 was marked by even more tear-down. Because of our plaster walls, it was going to be too difficult for the electrician to do his thing without causing an insane amount of cutting to be done. Even though it's a bit more work, tearing down our walls completely was the only option - and the better option for overall appearance. By the end of day two, things looked dramatically different as the construction crew was also able to cut the pass-though into the dining room. Our electrician finished up the wiring Saturday morning bringing us up to code (hooray for 3-prong outlets), so things are moving along quite nicely! Now, we're just waiting for the inspector on Monday to approve the wiring so that sheet-rock can begin.

This area is probably the hardest to visualize right now - it's going to be the built-in desk area.

Pass-through from the dining room into the kitchen.

It Has Begun - Day 1

Wow! Coming home yesterday was pretty shocking. The girls clung close to me mostly freaked out by the plastic that was hung to keep the dust relatively separated from the rest of the house. Olivia began informing me after much discussion that "the workers were taking our kitchen away" and that "we were buying a new one." Today more demolition will continue as more plaster needs to come down so the electrician can do his thing.

This picture is taken from the closet which they opened up from the guest room into the kitchen yesterday. This closet will become our desk area...

This is the future desk area I was talking about...This is probably the messiest part of everything right now, but I imagine thing will be crazier when I get home today as they'll be cutting the hole into the dining room.

Breakfast this morning went as well as it could once Liv got over the fact that we'd be eating at the dining room table in the middle of the living room and that Daddy was making toast on the floor! Wish us luck! The plan is that "re-construction" will begin Friday and flooring the middle of next week.

An Empty Kitchen

Tomorrow we start our kitchen renovation!!! It's been a little hectic around here packing everything up, but we're ready and excited to get this project started. Here are some "before" pictures for you all.


These last two pictures are of, in my opinion, the most funny parts of our old kitchen. I bet these light-switch covers were very "in" back in the day and quite expensive too. And the stove picture - it makes me laugh that I don't have the slightest idea how to make over half of the items on that list...should I ever attempt to do so, I most definitely will use the recommended temperatures!

Easter 2011

We had a restful and peaceful Easter here in Decorah last weekend. I enjoyed laying low and getting the opportunity to take a nap every single day! We probably should have started packing up the kitchen, but decided to just soak up a weekend at home and not stress ourselves out quite yet.

The weather was rather cool and occasionally rainy, so we didn't do all that much but did venture outside a little each day. Olivia and Brian were great pals with Brian tackling small projects around the house while Olivia followed him along playing babies and convincing Brian to haul her baby stroller up and down the stairs a million times. Gracie reinstated her obsession with mommy over the weekend, and also became the queen of silly.

On Sunday we had a wonderful meal at Brian's aunt's house, and then after naps, we had an Easter egg hunt at Pat and Roger's. I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story!

Off to church...

Snapped this picture of my lovely Livy while I was honing up on my camera skills. Sleepy girl - staying quiet in church was hard work!

Gracie caught on to Easter egg hunting right away - she's up to trying anything that Olivia can do.

Liv was definitely not interested in sitting still and getting her picture taken - or much less even looking at the camera.

Pretty sweet little sisters - if only they'd looked up!

Happy First Easter Gracie!

Hmmm...Do we have a little stinker in the making here? I think so...