Ready to instal the rest of the cabinets

The sidings are up.

The workers spent this week taking out the inner wall. 

Scott started the electrical with the help of Marc Smith.   

Most of the cabinet parts are made and ready for installation.  Here are the cabinet boxes.     

And the drawer fronts.  You also see the IKEA drawer parts in their boxes.  

The five piece drawer fronts look amazing, don't they?  Scott has perfected the art.    

I am really impressed with Scott's ability and patience for learning new skills.  I know it has been a steep learning curve.  Pictured below is the first set of drawer fronts he had made.  The wood planks he got at the local store was slightly warped, so the drawers didn't line up straight.  The sanding job was not the best.  The inexpensive paint sprayer produced an unwanted orange peel effect.  

Despite the imperfections, Scott was so excited that he finished his first set of drawers.   He took a picture on his iPhone and showed it to Mark at work.   Mark used to be a cabinet maker and he had been giving Scott some advice.  He wasn't impressed.  He took one look at the tiny picture and asked Scott why they weren't straight.  

Now that Scott has better tools, more tricks under his sleeves, and a lot more patience for details and quality control, he thinks it is funny that he was so proud of those first drawers.    

Here is another one.  Scott spent the whole evening making these drawer fronts, just to find out that they were half an inch too short on both sides.  It wasn't funny.  Not at 11p.m.          

I am going to miss seeing these drawer fronts that have given me a smile every day.     

The workers started to put on the siding.  Here is Asha pointing out that the colors of the new and old don't match.      

Today they started tearing down what is now the inner wall.  They got to the studs on the outer side, but left the rest intact until the door comes tomorrow.  I felt a little exposed having workers so close to my kitchen where I spend most of the day.  I'd better get used to it because they are going to be in my kitchen tomorrow.     

We decided on the counter top and back splash last weekend.  It is not any of the ones that we were considering.  It is Pentalquartz and the color we chose is Lattice.  It is the whitest of all the marble-like quartz we have seen, and we like the grey, gold and green veins that give it depth.            

The back splash is a ceramic tile called Absolute.      

 

We celebrated our fifteenth anniversary.  Cecily, Scott's sister, kindly and bravely watched our children while we took a weekend getaway to Seattle.  It was like a dream and I didn't want it to end.  Good thing we have cute children and a big project to come back to.             

Happy Father's Day to Scott.  Jerome and Asha bought him a t-shirt that says, "You say tomato, I say tomato, Doesn't make much sense when you read it."  They also made him breakfast in bed, and gave him some cute home-made cards.  It was well deserved because Scott is the one that taught them by example how to celebrate special occasions.  Our kids are so lucky to have a father that loves them and believes in them.  Scott is very involved in their lives and always makes time to have a conversation with them.          

We visited Scott's father to thank him for the wonderful man that he is, and snapped a three generation picture.