Kittens and Kitchens and Paint, Oh My!!!

Here we are with the house starting to really look like just that...a HOUSE not a compound. We have been painting the exteriors, which is zero fun in the summer. As a professional painter, I thought to my self (and out loud) "Oh, painting the house will be a piece of cake! I paint for a living!" I actually looed at one wall of the back house and told Warren I could paint it start-to-finish in 15-20 minutes. Oh, exterior painting, damn you. So not the same as interior painting. Not only is it super hot outside, and the paint gets all gummy and disgusting, the exteriors of the houses were all sprayed with Spray-Tex by Sears many years ago, and that stuff sucks up paint like I suck up wine with my mom or girlfriends. Like a lot is what I mean. So that's extending the process. But it's getting done. I'd say we're about 1/4 to 1/3 of the way done painting the exteriors. The insides of the eaves are the most time consuming part. A lot of trim and cutting in. Ugh.

On to the kitchen: We have the granite countertops installed on our custom cabinets (yours truly did her magic to make a funky eclectic look out of 2 mis-matched styles of cabinetry (Again, I am obsessed with the Damask wallpaper inserts). Our plumber, Peter can be seen here hooking up the cast-iron sink. This was a fun job for him, because his past work at our house involved digging ditches for gas and water lines, fixing leaks galore, repairing "tweaker plumbing" which is a line that runs maybe 12" but has 5-6 different materials in use. He's probably quite happy to see us at the end of the road soon! If you need a plumber let me know, I highly recommend Peter!

And Kittens: We found a litter of 3 kittens behind the garage last week. We have 2 kittens already, and if you didn't know, they're not the original 2. Our little orange kitty DJ from the pics in earlier blogs was vehicular cat-slaughtered (hit by a car) in front of our house a month and a half ago, and we adopted another kitty to keep Sonja company. Well, we found this litter, and a home for one on the first day, and have a taker for one more when our old neighbor gets back into town, and may end up with one of them. They're more than adorable, and when the house is done we have room for them, and are going to eventually put in an electronic fence so there are no more accidents. But yeah, we're those people that are remodeling our house down to the studs, dealing with 4 kittens. At least they're adorable and lift our spirits, because this is grueling work.

Wait for it....

I know, I know, it's been a while! No time to blog when I have work to do on the house! This one is for YOU Jaime Allen...we may even be related, and you always have an invitation here at Allentown.

A very short catch up for you all:

We had the Bobcat guy take away all the concrete that Warren and Kyle broke up:



We FINALLY drywalled the kitchen, plus primer and paint:



We re-hung the cabinets:





And just you wait until tomorrow (or maybe the day after...) I am promising to get caught up! Just a teaser:

We have the tile laid down in the hall bath, which is also painted and the fixtures will be 100% installed tomorrow.

The kitchen is 90% done. We have the FABULOUS damask wallpapered upper cabinet doors on, the granite countertops are in, the tile is 2/3's done, the grout goes down tomorrow in the kitchen and bath.

The Hallyway has (most) of the wainscot installed, just waiting for paint.

We have can lights and full electrical everywhere, just a few outside lights to install.

The hardwood floors are being refinished starting on monday, finishing on friday.

The Master Bedroom final wall has been demo'd, extended, re-framed, drywalled, mudded, taped, textured and painted! As well as the Master Closet, fully finished (except for the closet organizers)

And so much more...as you can see I have limited time to blog. Not to mention I took a day off last week with 2 girlfriends and accidentally spilled a glass of wine into my purse (don't ask) and my camera is out for repairs, so that has also put a damper on the photo-blogging. I am using Warren's camera now, and will upload the latest shots of the improvements shortly! It really is amazing, we've come so far. Can't wait to do a Before/After blog....we are 3 weeks from being DONE. I mean baseboards and crown moulding done. Whew. I better go to bed, so I can get up at 6am start all over again. We're at the point where there are a ton of little things to do. That amounts to a BIG job, but at least all the big jobs are out of the way, which made for a monstrous job.

Visitors are welcome! We won't be asking people to grab a sledgehammer and take down a wall anymore...we're at the point where it's much more fun to be here at Allentown!