Sewing and Beyond with Mary Anne Ciccotelli

(on Monday, Oct. 31 and Tuesday, Nov. 1

Most of the cabinets have been delivered and place in their somewhat correct position.

I am really loving my cabinets.  Pedro says this is noting – this is rough work.  The doors are going to make them look really beautiful!

They worked on removing the swinging door.


Working to hard right now for my favorite “Cheese”.


The door is removed – This corner is starting to come together .


Stephen worked on the drywall in this little landing way by the basement stairs.

When they removed the hardwood floor from the office area in the kitchen they saved the pieces to use in the little landing area by the basement stairs.

Here Stephen is working on putting the new (old) hardwood floor down.


I am really glad that Pedro had the forsight to save the original hardwood to use in this small section.

Preparing the new recessed light fixture for this small area.


The final decision where the light switch/outlet will be placed.

I painted the ceiling.  I am finding it exhausting getting the painting completed.  I have to paint in the evening so I will not be in the way of progress.  Fun to see it all starting to come together.

(On Thursday, Oct. 27 & Friday, Oct. 28 and the week-end)

On Thursday I did some more prep work on the walls.  I was a nervous wreck working where the tile had been laid even though I had a drop cloth down.  On Friday morning I covered the entire floor with this heavy duty paper.

Just when I was finishing with putting the paper down Pedro showed up with more cabinets.  The corner cabinet was to big and would not fit through the door.  Pedro had to cut the toe-kick part off and will build a separate piece for that.

I have spent A LOT of time making sure that I liked the color of paints that we have chosen.  This is the color for the kitchen walls.  Okay, but my heart is not singing.

The red color on the left was a “not-so-good” idea for the bathroom.  Back to the drawing board for that room.

I thought that the darker green would be better, but Tom and one of my friends said that it would be too dark.  I agreed that maybe it was too dark, but maybe a color half-way in between. But, maybe I just wasn’t getting it – this color would be okay.

Then, Friday evening before going to the temple I was visiting with Emily and discussing my woes of the paint choice.  She agreed that a darker color would probably be better, but maybe not as dark as the next color.  So, on Saturday I took my paint back to the paint store and ask them to make it darker, but not as dark as the next color.  Came home and tried and this is what I had.

I talked to Tom about it and he said that he did like the lighter color better (and I let out of sigh of disappointment) but then added that he liked the darker color also.  He was living the moto – If I am happy he is happy.

As I started to paint I began to doubt myself – was this TOO GREEN????????

As I continued to paint and it dried – I really began to like it.

Now that it is finished – I LOVE IT!!!!! and I also now LOVE the fabric for the curtains for the kitchen.  IT is all beginning to come together.

(On Wednesday, Oct. 26)

Today the did the grout on the floor.  To me this was a pretty scary process.  It kind of took my breath away to see them pour that brownish mud like stuff on my beautiful tiles.

Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, Stephen started to spread it out ALL over my floor.  I was wondering if I was ever going to see my beautiful tiles again.

The spreading, wiping and cleaning seemed to go on forever…………………at times I wanted to start crying because of how messy my floor looked.

WHEW – he knew what he was doing.

Late Wednesday night when Tom and I returned home from our 3 Hour Salsa Dinner/Cruise we were greeted with four cabinets.  (THIS IS MAKING ME EXCITED!!!!!!!!)

The way Pedro had wrapped the cabinets I was worried they were way to dark – so I had to put my mind at ease.  I LOVE the color and can’t wait for them to be installed in our kitchen.

Now it’s my turn to do some of the work.  I will be painting the walls before they install any cabinets.

I forgot to mention that they installed the new outside door on Friday.  It’s pretty exciting to have an outside door that you actually have to turn the knob to open the door.  When it was windy I would have to lock our old door to keep it closed.

Still lots of work to make it look like it really belongs.

(On Monday, Oct. 24 and Tuesday, Oct. 25) 

On Monday morning the workers removed the outside and bathroom doors to make it easier to work while installing the tiles in the small areas.

Here is the door to my………………..

bathroom.

On Tuesday they did some of the wiring.  Over the weekend Tom was looking closer at the location of the outlets.  When he realized that the outlet from the computer was in the next cabinet he said this was unacceptable.  I had told Pedro that also but he told me that he would just drill a hold to put the wires through.  Tom did not want this, so he got them to move the outlet.  (I guess I had had to push so hard for the location of some of the other outlets that I just let this one go.  I am glad that Tom put his foot down and now it is exactly where I wanted it.)

I think this guy loves life.  He was walking on these boards to make some adjustments to some of the tiles.  He loves the camera and always smiling or doing something funny for it.  (I know this picture is kind of blurry – but it’s the only one that I took.)

The tiles are completed.  This is getting really exciting!!!!!

(on Friday, Oct. 21, 2011)

This is a RED letter day – they started to install the tile on the floor.  Now it is really starting to looking like our kitchen is getting put back together.

Pedro working on getting exact marks where the side tile needs to be trimmed.

Maurice helping where needed.

This guy LOVES having his picture taken!

I can really start to imagine how cool our kitchen is going to be!

Thank YOU Pedro, Stephen and Maurice!!!!!!!

(on Thursday – Oct, 20, 2011)

Sorry for the delay in posting – I could not get pictures to upload because WordPress and my computer have not been getting along and for me a picture is worth a 1,000 words.  It is so frustrating when things do not work like they did the day before, but I have a new system in place and it is working (for right now)!

On Wednesday night we removed the screen door.  When it gets dark early you have to take matters into your own hands for needed light.

Chris does not have a screen door on his new house so he said our old one was better than nothing at all – so here it is ready for its new home.

Here is another interesting pieces of history of this house – here is evidence that it probably had blue trim at some point in time.

They continued putting down more of the cement board.

The heat vent is now rerouted and coming out up higher.

I know you were just wanting to see a close-up of the heat vent – so here it is.

It’s so fun when visiting with Pedro about some sort of detail and he will use the wall to illustrate what he is talking about – kind of reminds me of Dad and being on the construction site with him.  (I will have to make sure he does not do that after I have the walls painted though.)

Here the wood trim is removed below the large window in the office area.  Now the desk top should be able to fit better.

(on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2011)

Pedro and Stephen are working on moving the gas line.  When I asked if it was okay if I took the picture with them in it Stephen looked up and said a big “CHEESE”.  I love his smile.  He is the one that has been working here day after day.  He is a very hard worker and I appreciate all that he is doing.

The gas pipe is moved – the relocation of the stove is now a done deal – no going back now!

Checking for leaks (another big cheese for the camera).  It’s great that I like this guy because he is spending alot of time in my house.

With the move of the stove came other things that needed to be changed – ie heat/ac vent.

This has been challenging.  After discussing a few options and the pros and cons it was decided that the vent would be reposition to the right, coming out under the lazy susan.  When they started to make preparations for this they realized that there was a support stud(beam) for the upstairs that they needed to go through.  Probably not a good idea.  So, more options had to be discussed.

One option was to have it go up (to a height that would be above the duct work for the living room vent) and over to the left and down.  It would just barely come out into the corner under the cabints.   Pedro was not really excited about this option.  He didn’t feel I would get that much heat in the room if it was coming out in the corner like that (or maybe there was another reason and he just was not saying it).  What he really wanted to do was close the vent off and cover it up.  For me, this was not an option.  I was not too worried about the heat – I can always turn the oven on.  But in the Summer, the cool (A/C) is the problem.  With having closed that corner off I am really worried how hot the kitchen would get especially now since the cool air from the basement will not make it into the kitchen. 

We discussed different options.  The one we finally settled on was having the cabinet that is going to be above the microwave (which will be over the stove) 6″ shorter.  That 6 inch space will be used for the duct work/vent.  Above is our fine drawing of how the arrangement will look. 

Stephen has opened up the wall and it is ready for the duct work to be installed.

The cement board was also installed in part of the area to be covered with tile.  Pedro thinks they will install the tile on Firday (we’ll see).  I also spent some time to make the decision about the color to paint the walls.  You can see in the above picture to the right where I have a cabinet door, tile, drapery fabric and paint chip arranged trying to helping in the final decision.  Picking these colors is much harder than choosing fabric for a quilt – that come really easy.

I think Stephen really enjoys doing mud work – he always seems to find some time to spread a little mud here and there.

(on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2011)

The electrical and drywall work continues.

The ceiling between the outside door and Half-bath was always cracking and peeling.  To fix this they put a new piece of sheetrock up on that part of the ceiling.

The nails from some of the floor boards were removed.

Tomorrow they are suppose to move the gas line.  (If you look really close – you can see where I have added a red line that shows roughly where the new gas line for the stove will go.

This was the first major change I dreamed up for our kitchen and it took awhile for Tom is get onboard for this change.  But, when he is on board he is there completely!  I am really excited about this change.  I think by not having the refigerator in the middle of my counter top space it will really make my little kitchen feel alot larger.

Pedro said that he would take me to Home Depot to pick-up the door.  But he always seems so busy, so Tom and I borrowed a friend’s car and went and picked up our new door.

Fun times in the Ciccotelli household!

(on Monday, Oct. 17, 2011)

The work day begun with holes being cut where the outlets are to be  positioned.

When the wires could not be strung inside the wall, channels were created for the wire to go from one outlet to another.  This wall has the new outlets that will be in our office area.

These outlets had to be repositioned because the original outlets will be covered with the new cabinets.

With the addition of the new cabinets in the corner the doorbell has to be moved.  Here is the channel for the doorbell wire to be buried in the wall to above the door.

In our old kitchen the refigerator was in front of the heat/ac vent.  Since we are swapping the location of the refigerator and stove that means the vent would be in back of the stove.  Also, with the corner being filled with cabinets the heat/ac would have no where to do and would not get into the room.  Therefore, we are moving the vent to have it come out in the toekick of one of the cabinets beside the stove.  Here they have are chipped away the wall to start this process.  I think this will acually get more heat/ac into the kitchen area.

Last night Tom worked on getting the cable wire inside the wall.

We also had to determine how much extra wire was needed to allow the TV to move around on the full-motion wall mount.  The blue tape marks the exact spot!

on Friday Oct. 14, 2011

Above is the layout that we had planned on for months.  This includes swapping the placement of the stove and refigerator.

At the last minute, we decided to close in the corner and use the doorway in the dining room to get into the basement.  I think this is going to make our kitchen feel like a REAL kitchen and not just a pass-through area.  It should also give us some nice counter space so that more than one person can be working in the kitchen comfortably.

After

This shot shows where they have added the wall to close in the corner.

 

I had forgotten that I had an outlet in my pantry.  Can you imagine – I have never used it the 13 years that I have lived here.

On Sunday evening………..

Tom decided that we should figure out if we needed all the wires that were running through our office area.  As it turns out, this old telephone box was there just for looks (or eyesore).  Tom removed the box and extra wires.  It is really fun to remove this kind of stuff and see some of the history of a house.  Do you like that green paint?  Can you imagine the whole room painted that color?

We also spent some time marking exactly where we want the outlets and…………..

deciding where we wanted to mount the TV on the wall and placement of the outlet for the TV.