progress in the process

you know that song from "finding nemo?" the one that dory sings? "just keep swimming. just keep swimming. just keep swimming, swimming, swimming." [you're quite welcome for getting it stuck in your head, btw] that's what i'm concentrating on right now.

just keep on making progress.

that probably sounds a little grim, but it's not. you see, we're in the middle of redoing our kitchen. originally we were just going to paint over everything that was there before, and take down a few cabinets - replacing them with open shelving. now the project has... changed. and grown just a tad.

ok. so, it all started with our bathroom remodel. [disclaimer: my detail-orientedness will make this a longer explanation than it needs to be. all of you big picture people may want to skim and/or skip ahead to the photos below...]

anyway, we had a drop-down area above both our sinks and our shower. meaning: there was a piece of drywall enclosing about eight inches or so down from the ceiling. over the sinks it was no big deal, but over the shower it made it feel a bit cocoon-like. we thought it was odd, but asked our contractor to tile it so it didn't get nasty from being so close to the shower itself. he also planned to put in a light and fan combination directly over the shower because there was neither there before.

well, when he opened up the drop-down to install the light/fan he found out there was basically one wire running through it, and that was it. so his electrician rewired that one wire [easy-peasy], and they took out the rest, and raised the ceiling over the shower so it's nice and spacious now.

see how the tile goes all the way up to the ceiling?
now imagine if the ceiling was about 8 inches shorter.
bad, right?
very bad.

all that to say, we had the same drop-down things above all of our countertops in the kitchen. and once our contractor found out there was no reason for them in the bathroom peter started wondering about the ones in the kitchen. he opened up a vent, and looked as best he could. then he analyzed the duct work. then he cut a hole in the drop-down. you know where this is going, don't you?

peter took out the drop-downs. completely. and when he did he discovered that whoever wired this house decided to run all the wires through the drop-downs instead of doing it properly. basically, s/he was one lazy son of a gun. so peter has to run the wires differently. and move around some of the duct work.

on the plus side a college student that we know from church came and did a ton of painting while we were gone on our trip to the beach, so while we will still have more painting to do, it looks much better now than it did before.

the photos are dark because i took them early this morning, and there was almost zero natural light. this is where we're at now:

we have a bit left to do.

just a bit.

peter is going to re-wire, and finish adjusting the duct work. then he'll drywall in all the open spaces. we also need to scrape off the popcorn ceiling to make it all match [plus, popcorn ceilings are awful.]

then of course, we'll have to paint the new stuff. and i'm planning on making the sink wall a focal wall using a stencil [too hard to explain the whole thing without pictures]. then we'll build and paint and install the open shelving, and put the cabinets back up on the other side.

oh, but first we have to take care of the countertops. we decided last night to go ahead and replace the countertops while we're doing the rest of it because they were going to need to be replaced in a few years anyway, and color-wise they don't really work. [plus, they're ugly.]

so we'll probably try to do the counters before we do the stenciling/painting/shelving so we don't have to redo that.

and you know, all the little things - touch up and seal the cabinets, put up new moldings, and quite probably - paint the floor. [that last one may not be such a little thing.]

just a bit.

left. to. do.

so. remember that whole "just keep swimming" thing? yes. we'll just keep swimming. we'll just keep plugging along, making progress. because if we make progress, we're not stuck. 

we'll keep moving things along the continuum. 

eventually i'll have a microwave again. and brand new countertops. and a fantastic kitchen that is not covered in drywall dust.

and yes, this whole post should have a giant #firstworldproblems attached to it. i am aware of this. 

and i'm grateful for the process. [or at least i'm trying to be.]

xoxo