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?

world's ugliest

We've covered this before, but, you guys, we have super hyper dogs.

As evidenced here:


Play time from Cindy Germann on Vimeo.

That video was obviously from our pre-kitchen remodel days, but she hasn't changed a bit. Since they're both so high-energy, we've talked on and off about getting a treadmill and teaching the pups how to walk on it. And then we started running more, and as much as I prefer outdoor running, it's often too dark/cold/icy/whatever to actually make a run happen in my non-working hours.

So we started talking about getting a treadmill...again. And then we were offered a free treadmill. FREE. We couldn't say no.

On Saturday night we brought home what may very well be the world's ugliest treadmill. But you know what? It's totally functional, so for now, it's perfect.

Even the dogs think so.

This worked so much better than either of us thought it would! We heard it could take over 4 hours to treadmill train a dog. Multiply that times 2 dogs and I would've lost my patience long before we had this figured out. Fortunately, our crazy pups figured it out a lot faster.

To get them comfortable with the machine Nick stood outside the belt and had the dogs on a leash. He'd start the treadmill really really slowly. Both dogs kept trying to sit down, and then they'd get to the end of the track and scramble like crazy to not fall off.

But in less than 10 minutes they were really getting the hang of it! They still pause before every step (so we still have it running really slowly - less than 1mph), but they keep moving!

We kept their little sessions short with lots (and lots and lots) of encouragement and some treats sprinkled in.    They actually seemed to love it, especially Beemer! He kept trucking along and would jump back on the treadmill after we told him he was "all done." Shalai is a little less certain about the whole thing, but did really well with it.

We're hoping we can use this to keep them active when it's cold/dark/icy/late and that the extra exercise will help all of us get a little more sleep at night.

Have you ever tried treadmill-training your dog? Any tips for us? Think we're totally nuts?

new dryer!

In addition to our goal of finishing the kitchen this year, we’re also aiming to do more laundry.

Aka – we finally have a dryer again!!!

Once we dug out our original receipt and realized we’d paid only $250 for our brand-new dryer 3 years ago, it really didn’t make sense to put $280 into fixing it. Our next thought was Craigslist, so we started scouring the postings for a gas dryer. Should you ever find yourself in our shoes, please note that there are far fewer gas dryers on the market than electric, and they’re more expensive. Awesome.

And yes, we did debate converting our house to work with an electric dryer, but that was a last-resort idea, since we’re kinda busy with other things like building kitchen cabinets.

We followed up on a couple listings, but we were always too late (it’s gone!), or the dryer was several hours away, or the reply sounded sketchy (no thanks). On our day-after-new-years-holiday we decided to see what was available on the retail market. 

Our first stop was ApplianceSmart, where we purchased our original washer/dryer set three years ago. They only had 3 gas dryers (vs 30-some electric) and the cheapest one was $400. Once we piled tax, hoses and connectors onto that price we were way above what we wanted to spend. Plus, it was a bottom-of-the-line dryer and it looked….cheap. We couldn’t bring ourselves to spend $500 on that.

We also checked out Sears, Home Depot, Lowes and Menards, but just couldn’t find anything that was a viable option. Which certainly isn’t to say there aren’t viable options out there, it’s just that we’re a little disenchanted with the dryer industry at the moment and had no interest in spending a lot of money on one, since our 3 year old purchase is now completely useless.

Frustrated, we turned back to Craigslist. We decided to just get  something, preferably a really cheap something, that will hopefully last for at least a couple years. The technician that came out to look at our old one said the best dryer on the market is the one made my Whirlpool with the lint trap on top, in the back-right corner. We later found out that any dryer with the lint trap in that location is made my Whirlpool (so Roper, Maytag and Amana are all under the Whirlpool umbrella). My parents happen to have that dryer and it’s the only appliance in their house they haven’t had to replace, so we were hoping to find something along those lines. He also suggested getting a simple machine, avoiding the electric panels (the $280 part that failed on our current dryer) and the bells and whistles. The less there is, the less there is to go wrong.

Finally, yesterday, we got our dryer! Someone had what we were looking for listed as name-your-price. We offered $175, they took it, we brought home a dryer.

Hallelujah.

We still need to get new hoses (by law we can’t re-use the old ones), but we should be doing laundry by this weekend. Which is good, because I’m running out of socks. Again. And we’ve been doing a lot of laundry-mooching off our generous parents for the past month.

Also – because some of you have asked, we did consider just hang-drying everything. We already do a lot of line drying (all of our gym gear, dress pants and a lot of dressy shirts), but reality is that we’re just not home enough to line dry everything. We have enough trouble staying on top of our laundry when we only need to throw it in the dryer. If we have to hang everything up in the limited space we have available we’d never get through it all. That’s just reality.

There you have it! We’re back on the road to clean clothes. Anybody out there line dry everything? Replaced a dryer recently? Need to do some laundry? (Come try out our cool new toy!)

progress = beautiful

Happy 2012, friends! You better believe I'm making my list of goals for the new year, but I'm pretty sure FINISH THE KITCHEN tops the list, so let's start there.

Ok, here's where we left off:

Aaaaand, here:

Fast forward to Friday night. We were 24 hours away from our annual New Year's Eve party and the kitchen was covered in power tools. Plus, we were still utilizing half our living room as a drywall cutting station. We put our "get it done" hats on and powered through our to-do lists.

And then my dad ended up in the ER and then Beemer ended up in the doggie ER. Fortunately, they're both doing ok now, and Dad is back home. Life has a way of putting your priorities back in order awfully fast, and I'm so thankful Dad's doing ok. We're also thankful for awesome friends (ahem, Tim) who stepped up and helped us make a party happen.

So by 7:00 on Saturday we had this cabinet shell in place (and conveniently, storing our punch bowl and wineglass boxes).

On the other side of the kitchen we got our new and improved breakfast bar in place (excuse the recycling underneath....).

I'm already loving this little spot for moving groceries in and out of the fridge, as well as dumping my purse and mittens.

We obviously have a long way to go, but seeing this much progress is an encouraging start to 2012.

How did you all ring in the New Year? Party? Quiet night at home? Drywall dust??