Oh, who am I kidding- it's always project time around here!! We're big fans of DIY and sweat equity in this house (something I think that we both inherited from our parents), and we're always finding some small (or large) project that will help make our happy little home even happier.
Actually, I take that back. Usually I'm dreaming up the projects, then dragging poor Darren into them. Good thing he's a good sport about it and handy at just about anything (installing a tankless water heater, anyone?), because yesterday the appliance delivery dudes dropped this off at our little casa!!
Yup, that's my new range- the very last appliance I had to choose for the kitchen before the remodel could take place. It took me long enough to settle on one, and it didn't help that I was really picky about it. I had a definite feature list in mind- natural gas, stainless steel, double oven, and five burners on top, one of which had to be a long oval to accomodate a cast iron griddle. I'd looked at both 30" and 36" models and finally settled on the smaller one (since my kitchen is tiny as it is). Besides, anything is an upgrade from the little 24" model that came with the house when I bought it almost ten years ago!
Luckily, said range is no longer sitting in the middle of our living room/dining room/home theater (can you see the reflection of the Wii in the oven door?) amidst the remnants of another project that involved removing an actual planter from the room. When I arrived home (late, again) from work tonight, Darren had already moved it into the kitchen!! It's not totally hooked up yet, but I should be cooking with gas (bye, bye, electric oven) by tomorrow evening!
I mentioned earlier that my family has a long DIY history, and this layout that I recently scrapped (in my hotel room in Boston) shows my brother, one of his friends, and I all working to build a new home for our dogs in my parents' back yard several years ago.
This is another layout based on one of May Flaum's Big Picture classes. I was thrilled to finally find a use for some of my old Basic Grey "Color Me Silly" paper that I've had in the stash for quite a while. I know that some people are huge proponents of purging anything that you don't use in 6 months or a year, but I find that as long as I buy supplies that I know fit my style, I usually eventually (even years later) find a use for them.
Now that the last appliance is in place, I'm quickly running out of excuses for putting off measuring the kitchen and sitting down with the IKEA planner to choose cabinets! It may be a while yet as we need to gut the room and redo the floors first, but it's definitely getting closer!