Starting to Move Back In

As do-it-yourselfers, it becomes readily apparent just how much extra work a general contractor does to complete a project. It's not very apparent from these photos, but we have kept the job of caulking and painting the trim for ourselves... something that would ordinarily cost around $7000 to have done by professionals for a house this size (2500sf).

So, we have moved in a minimal amount of furniture to make it easier for us to finish up the caulking and painting. As you might notice on the photo above, we've also reserved the job of tiling the fireplace! My mother and I plan to work on it this summer.

Kitchen Improvements

From the beginning, we knew that just a few changes would greatly improve the functionality of our kitchen: 1. We opened up the wall between the kitchen and dining rooms, and moved the circulation to the center of the house, so that the kitchen work area would be a simple U configuration. 2. We moved the sink to face the dining room, and moved the range to the outside wall. 3. We installed a microwave/vent over the range! This house did not have any ventilation in the kitchen at all when we bought it.

It is wonderful to look out towards the dining, living, and entry rooms from the kitchen sink. And it is incredibly easy to clean up afterwards. The ledge behind the sink allows me to be messy in the kitchen without it being visible in the entertaining space. And in the winter, that little heat vent in the toekick below the sink keeps my feet warm!

We built a tall pull-out pantry next to the refrigerator, and it is one of our favorite features of the kitchen. That pantry contains all of the dry food we need to keep in the house, and with the full-extension heavy duty slides, we can access every inch, no problem.