my view

Almost anytime I'm taking a picture I have to finagle around this view:

Yup. Beemer's head.

Our big furball is a total cuddlebug. If I'm kneeling/crouching/sitting/doing push-ups on the floor he has to be in the middle of it.

And let's be real. I absolutely love it.

why you should seal your grout

Always, always, always seal your grout.

We didn't, which is why we think you should.

When we finished tiling our kitchen floor (way back in '08), we immediately started having trouble with the grout cracking. We decided we'd have to take it out and re-do parts of the grout, so we held off on sealing the grout.

Yeah, we never fixed the grout, and therefore we never sealed it.

Here's what our grout is supposed to look like (this was covered by our fridge for 3 years, which is why it's still clean):

And here's what the grout on the majority of our kitchen floor looks like:

So don't be like us. Seal your grout. Right away.

(We'll be removing all of our grout and re-grouting the entire floor, which falls into "how to make remodeling projects as complicated as possible)

filling in the gaps

This was a really great weekend. We spent too much time (unsuccessfully) working on truck repairs, but we still made progress on the kitchen and conquered our laundry pile. And fixed a door handle so we can use our front door again. Look at us go!

But while clean clothes are exciting, I think kitchen progress is probably even more exciting (we live a wild and crazy life).

Our first project was to install the back of our new cabinet. We had planned to add another piece of plywood on top, along with the granite countertop, but it was just too cold outside on Sunday to cut everything.

I think Nick has done a pretty stellar job on this cabinet, so I casually suggested ripping out all our lower cabinets so he could build new ones. He wasn't interested. Weird.

Our next project? Backsplash!!

We installed the rest of the cement board and then started filling in the gap with slate.

  Man, it's really fun to see this kind of progress! We still have the tricky part left to tackle (all the pieces that need to be cut), but in keeping with our mantra...progress is beautiful.

And of course, all of our work was completed under the watchful eye of our quality control team.

How was your weekend? Productive? Relaxing? Hopefully awesome, no matter what you had on the schedule!

quality control

When we left things off, Nick had constructed a new base cabinet, but we literally pushed it into place just hours before we hosted a New Year's Eve party, so there were definitely some loose ends to tie up.

Here's how we left things:

Just a couple weeks later the top was already starting to bow, which we expected because it's such a big cabinet. But since we're going to add the weight of a granite countertop we needed to beef up the frame to hold the weight.

So beef up we did.

Nick added 2x4's around the front and back to basically create a header (like you'd find in a doorway) to support the top of the cabinet.

Boom. Instant support. Exactly what this mega-cabinet needs to hold up the weight of a counter top.

 Meanwhile, Shalai kept a careful eye on our work. Can't get anything past quality control around here.

backsplash updates

Remember when I got all crazy excited that our upper cabinets were finally back on the wall? Yeah, well, the fun doesn't end there. Notice our gorgeous back splash in the picture below. Then notice the awkward gap of plain ol' drywall between the top of the back splash and the cabinet itself.

That actually wasn't a measurement error. We did that on purpose because we like to make life as difficult as possible for ourselves. The driving force behind a lot of the changes we made in the kitchen was to really open things up. The cabinets felt too close to the countertops, which made things feel cramped and closed in. So, we decided to install the cabinets 6" higher than they were before.

Special bonus? We can open the coffee maker completely without having to pull it out from under the cabinet.

I think I just admitted we designed our kitchen around a coffee maker.

Unfortunately, this coffee-friendly design meant some extra work. See all those half-tiles at the top of the back splash? Yeah. They had to go so we could extend the back splash by another 6" to meet the underside of the cabinets.

We used a grout removal attachment on the Dremel and ground out every last bit of grout between every half-tile. We didn't use a guard or anything....mostly because the one we brought home from Home Depot didn't fit the Dremel model we have. (Whoops) But we ended up not needing it at all.

Once the grout was gone we used a large flat-head screwdriver to pop the tiles off the wall. I'm sure there's a better method (and better tool), but this got the job done. Even with slate tiles (which are very easily broken) we only had a couple casualties. Most of these babies will find themselves back on the wall before long.

This whole process was actually MUCH more simple than we thought it would be. Which never ever happens. Total win.

The tiles did leave a fair amount of old thinset and chunks of slate behind, so I went back through with a (smaller) flat head screwdriver and hammer and chipped all the old stuff off so we'll have a fresh start with the new tiles.

Tools of the trade:

That step was time consuming, but still pretty simple. While I tackled the residue, Nick was out in the (very chilly)(and almost dark) backyard cutting cement board. At this rate we should have new tile on the wall soon!

Tomorrow? More progress on the new cabinets and a glimpse of our quality control team.

(Hint: they're fuzzy)

sneaky pups

It was a good weekend to be a dog in our house.

First, I was gone Friday night and apparently both dogs spent the entire night sleeping in our bed.

Typically, I'm the softy who lets them sneak into bed, but apparently that role was filled just fine by Nick while I was gone. Reports are Shalai took it upon herself to put my pillow to good use.

Then, Nick and I were both under the weather for the remainder of the weekend. That did nothing for our finish-the-kitchen efforts, but it made for an incredible amount of puppy snuggling.

Shalai is officially done sleeping now and ready to play! play! play! so here's hoping this week has more healthy and activity and less laying on the couch.

How was your weekend? Anybody else let the dogs get away with things just because?

booklist 2012

Last year I read some really great books. Here's just a few of my favorites -

Delivering Happiness, Onward, Linchpin, The Millionaire Next Door and the Help.

I would highly recommend all of these, but if I had to pick just one I'd have to say Linchpin by Seth Godin is the winner. Very thought provoking and a great read if you want to work on your career.

(Next pick would be Onward by Howard Schultz. I know you didn't ask but I loved this book, so I had to tell you. Subtitled "How Starbucks fought for its life without losing its soul." Great great read. I cried. I don't think business books are supposed to make you cry.)

But now I'm looking for some new reads for the new year. I'm going to read 24 books this year, and here we are one week into January and I haven't even started. (Way to go, Cindy!)

If you've read some great books recently (or heck, a long time ago!) I'd love to add it to my list. Any ideas for me?