CABINET UPDATE

Yeah, I know you've been chewing your nails and hovering near the edge of your seat for this. :)

We have almost everything done as far as the cabinets go.  The carpenter and installers came over early Monday morning and began ripping the kitchen apart.  It seemed to be fairly easy for them to do, which makes me wonder how they've stayed up all these years!  It was apparent that the people who built this house also built the cabinets, because it was the first time we'd ever seen naked sheet rock anywhere in this house.  I suppose that's also why they were never quite right, somehow.  Oh, it wasn't that they weren't useful or that they were ugly or anything, but they were just kind of weird.  Lots of space you couldn't use, doors that wouldn't quite close, and narrow shelving were the main problems.  Note to everyone out there: unless your builder is also a master cabinet maker, always find an expert to make your cabinets or you'll be very sorry later on!  Of course, most new houses aren't built like ours was, so you probably don't have to worry about it.  :)  At any rate, I thought I'd be sad to see the old cabinets go, but I wasn't! Not even a little bit.

The process took them longer than they originally thought, I think.  The massive counter tops that Steve built were a bit of a pain to remove, but they finally got it all ripped out and got down to business.  I was working in my office most of the time they were here, and every time I'd walk out for something, they'd made tons of progress.  It was a fascinating kind of thing to watch!

They ended up working until well after 5:00, and they didn't quite have everything finished, but the lion's share is done!  It looks amazing so far, and they've effectively given us twice the storage space we had before!  Yay!  I'm crossing my fingers that that means we can get rid of the mismatching shelving we had to get to store overflow food, and I also hope that means our corners won't be full of cans and boxes we couldn't fit anywhere else.  The pantry alone is enormous!  I'm not kidding, it's like Underground-Railroad-hiding-place big.  I'm just very grateful we were able to get such nice pieces of furniture for such a reasonable cost.  We were very lucky.

Of course, it isn't all perfect, but we had surprisingly few issues.  The sink hole is a bit too big, so the sink slid aside when Steve was trying to screw the clamps in and one of the screws cracked a spot of the laminate.  We are still waiting on a pair of doors that had accidentally been measured wrong and had to be redone and the handles had to be ordered and they weren't in yet.  Also, the island hasn't been set into the floor because we can't put it anywhere permanently until everything else is finished. The people will be back next week to finish up the details.  We also can't start putting things into the cabinets until after the hinges and handles have been installed and calibrated.  Related to all of this is that we are still waiting for the electrician to come back and add the plug for our stove and microwave, and Steve had to remove the sink again to redo that part, so we still have no electricity or plumbing in the kitchen, but I'm still completely tickled over everything so far.

I don't want to put pictures up until it's all done, but you'll be amazed at what a difference the new work has made!  We will still have some painting and stuff to do after that, but even with the sheet rock showing and the gouges in the walls from the other cabinets, it will still look beautiful!