Hurricane Smurricane

With all of the news about Hurricane Irene coming last weekend, we stocked up on building supplies, wine and beer for a weekend full of kitchen work. Although the hurricane never materialized to much in DC our kitchen, oh our kitchen, took on a whole new look.

Ready for some drywall

We kept the top open so that we can run vents from the stove.

We just glued on drywall to our chimney since no cabinets will be hanging. I'm thinking I'll put my blackboard here :)

We made big progress on the south wall, Ryan framed out the last part of the wall for the fridge and we drywalled around it.

We want the fridge to be as in set as possible so we didn't want to drywall where it would go.

Looking good!

While Ryan was working on the south wall I was working on insulation on the north wall... with Ryan's help :)

All insulated!

And here's the south wall in all her glory:

PRETTY exciting. Last night, while I was at school, Ryan started planning out the ceiling that is currently exposed. We found a tiny issue (read: crack in ceiling joist) so he headed to Home Depot at 6am to pick up the necessary supplies to fix it tonight. We have a longgg to do list for this week (plus I'm now in school part time) but the goal is to have my Mom and sister down here Sunday to help me paint. Now wouldn't that be exciting!?!?

PASSED

We passed our inspection! Woot Woot! Walls will be coming up this weekend! Take that Irene :) I was in charge of charging all three drill batteries in case we lose power so let's hope that dry walling is quick.

Oh and in case you're wondering, Iceland was AMAZING! :)

Yay for Friday!

MIA

So, I've been a little MIA this week but that's because my cat, Caley, is MIA. I know most of you don't live in New Jersey but, if you do, she's ten pounds, grey with some black stripes and has a white face, paws and belly. She's super friendly and responds to her name. She may even still have some gold soft paws on. She went missing from 9 Douglas Rd in Glen Ridge, NJ so if you see her, please contact me.

We miss her...

Walls... oh how I missed thee

Last weekend, we made some major progress. We Ryan finished prepping all the walls so that we were ready to drywall and boy, was that exciting.

Finishing up the window frame.

We are going to make our kitchen wall flush with the family room so we had to take out the corner unit.

Same thing on the opposite wall.

We were all ready to start on the drywall!!! So we did....

I swear I helped right after I shot this picture :)

First wall done!!

Until, Ryan realized, we needed to get all of our permits closed out before we could cover up all of his handy work. So now we're waiting for our plumber to get it together and close out his permit.... sigh. Atleast while we wait we'll be traveling Iceland! Life is good.

Oh and skydiving? That didn't happen. Not because we weren't there but because instead of watching Ryan jump out of a plane, we watched a plane crash. It was horrible. Never again.

Dumped

In the last post I showed you a little piece of sunshine in my "backyard" but what I didn't show you is the past 6 months of junk that we've been gathering on the other side of the backyard. It has pretty much gotten out of control and Ryan decided that since we were already going to rent a truck to pick up drywall that we should use the truck to haul away all of our construction trash. So, bright and early Saturday morning, Ryan put on his gloves to tackle the junk yard that had become the side of our house.

Before- there is also a toilet back there.

Our own personal trash dump

After- that green siding drives me insane.

We still have our door back there and the bars to the kitchen windows but it looks 150% better than it did. Ryan also took the large trash from the basement so we had a rather full load when we headed to the town dump. If you've never been to a dump, it's quite impressive.

Monstrous pile of garbage.

Later toilet.

After our trip to the dump, we headed to our second home aka Home Depot and picked up drywall supplies. Quite exciting....

Loading up the truck.

Minus the fact that ultra light drywall is totally NOT ultra light and Ryan needed help bringing all 11 sheets in to the house... and I was that helper. But, I did it, and now we have all of our drywall in the house.

Drywall

Pretty productive Saturday if I do say so myself and a rather exciting day for our little household. We still had some things to do before we could actually put up the drywall but just the thought of walls tickle my fancy.

Summer in the City

As I was picking my first ripe tomatoes from my garden/ watching Ryan clean up the trash out back this weekend, I realized I have never shared pictures of my little piece of sunshine in the city. Granted, the mosquitoes out back can be mistaken for vampires but I'm really lucky to have the garden space and I'm really lucky to have a Mom who helped me set it up.

My little plot

Tomato flowers

Yummy Tomatoes

More jalapenos than I know what to do with :)

I grew my Zinnias from seed and they sure are purtty.

Who know squash blossoms were so gorgeous?

Massive Squash plant next to my jalapenos.

Basil

I'm having a hard time getting flowers on my red pepper, green pepper and cucumber plants but I'm still hopeful :) Not pictured is my fig tree, eggplant, rosemary and oregano. Oh, how I love summer. I made myself a caprese sandwich for lunch with my tomatoes and even though I was enjoying it at an airport, it was still a little piece of heaven. Plus, as soon as I finished, I got upgraded to business class. Free drinks on a plane the day after you see a plane crash, yes, please!

Friday!!!!

Oh, Friday, how I love thee. We have a full weekend full of projects (which we will be taking a break from Sunday morning to watch Ryan jump out of a plane) and I'm so excited to be spending the weekend in DC. It's funny that being away the past few weekends makes me actually miss it...

Ryan's been working late all week (as Ryan's mom said last week, "Ryan, you work too much"... true statement) so, we haven't done much with the house (boo!) but last night we managed to squeeze in a small project around 10pm. We finished framing the walls vertically the other week but where the windows are we needed to put in horizontal 2x4's for our window sills before we drywall. So, last night, Ryan set out to finish up one of the two windows.

Measuring up the window

Putting in the last screw

Done did. I love window sills especially since that means all my beautiful monstrous herb plants that are currently outside, will be able to come inside for the winter and I do love my fresh herbs. I think I have enough oregano, basil and rosemary to feed a small army, which is exactly how I like it.

I also just bought some fabric for Monkey's bed in our bedroom. This project has been a long time coming but it took me forever to find fabric that I liked. 

You like?

I also bought a yard of fabric to test out in the family room/kitchen. I have a few fabrics that I'm torn between when it comes to centering the design around but I think this one will be a good starting point.

I'm loving this color pallet.

I'm thinking that I would turn these in to curtains in our kitchen or family room. I want our curtains to have a variety of colors so that they pull the room together. I am not a white curtain girl, I just don't see the point (probably because I'm obsessed with fabric).

I'm in Atlanta next week and we're off to Iceland the week after that but I'll update Monday on our progress from the weekend. I kind of love August it's like the month of vacations and also the month we'll be getting married in ONE year from Thursday! Woop Woop! How did the first 7 months of our engagement fly by so fast!?!? Time flies when you're having fun renovating a house ;)

PS. For those of you that are curious about the wedding our wedding website is www.ryanandchetta.projectwedding.com

We're Backkkkk

From a much needed break from the house :) We had the opportunity to go up to Boston and visit a friend and then head to NYC/ NJ for the next week. We had an amazing engagement party in NJ with some pretty amazing people (hosted by Ryan's amazing parents) and now, now we're ready to get this kitchen done (and I know you're ready to stop hearing about it). So, here goes nothing...