They're Here! And They're Beautiful!

...or rather they will be...when they are uncrated and installed that is.

Yesterday morning the cabinets arrived.  To prepare for this event, Gerry spent some time Sunday night moving everything he could to the back room, leaving only the sofa in the TV room (or as we're now calling it the "Cabinet/Cupboard Acclimation" room).





These photos should come with a warning:  "Carpet appears much cleaner and in much better shape than it really is."

And so I had the guys put down some protection for the floor before the cabinets arrived (not so much because the carpet is more fabulous than I originally thought but really because there's no way that we will be able to AFFORD new carpet after this remodel!)

And then the guy with the really big truck arrived and it didn't take long for the three of us - Todd, master electrician, Nathan (we'll call him construction intern - he's a college kid who's worked for our builder between college classes at SPU) and me - to figure out this guy was having a pretty rough day.  Nathan said he seemed to be the guy who got up on the wrong side of the bed MOST mornings and I couldn't disagree.  Obviously snapping a photo of him delivering the many boxes was absolutely out of the question.


And there were a LOT of boxes (56 to be exact - or at least I hope so because we didn't actually count them and he didn't seem inclined to wait for us to do so).


With two left to go, the formerly-known-as-TV-room was packed.  Naturally the two remaining were the largest - the 8 ft. pantry and it's near twin 8 ft. china cupboard.

Trying to make his day a little brighter I told him that maybe we should put these two large boxes in the piano room (thereby avoiding the step-down TV room).  He didn't seem nearly as grateful for this idea as I would have hoped but at that point I was just trying to expedite the process and get him on his way to making some other family happy with their delivery.

Clearly our TV watching evenings are over until such time as these can be uncrated and installed (probably not until next week).

Meanwhile, the room needs to be finished before this can happen.  First up, while Todd completes the electrical happenings (finishing relocating outlets and light switches, etc.), Nathan began work on the hardwood floor.  It's a back breaking job but somebody has to do it (thankfully the lowest man on the totem pole - aka the intern).







Gerry happened to get home before Nathan had quit for the day and watched him selecting pieces of wood, carefully lining them up, pounding them into position and using the nail guy to secure them.  He was really impressed at the kid's expertise and asked how long he had been doing flooring.  Nathan looked at me and asked "What?  Since about 10 am?"  [Today was his first day actually doing flooring.  Fortunately for all of us, he's a) a great kid; b) a quick study; c) part of David's team which means I never have to worry about any of this being down right the first time!]

It's going to be gorgeous when it all gets refinished (though I might find reasons to escape during at least some of the process - it's pretty noisy around here these days!)

~later, tw