86'n It

My parents breezed through town today on the way to see my other sister and 3 nephews. They stopped just long enough to pee and unload furniture. Yippee! The "Sewing Room" is now officially "Gerry's Room". No more mattress on the floor for you, Gerry!

Pretty cool huh? My late Grandmother had some nice taste. :)
I miss her (and her hilarious cackle) a lot, so it's cool to have something in this house from her.

The same thing is happening that did after we got the outside of the house painted... nothing.
The kitchen is livable so progress has slowed to a crawl. We are holding off on the countertops for financial reasons, but Marc starts his job March 2nd and we will get them after that. Until then, he has promised to go full steam ahead with all the custom woodwork. So, here's a little list of everything that needs to be done:

1. Create custom wood surrounds for tall cabinets and refrigerator area.
2. De-nail and clean board for wood wall and bench framing
3. Clean up windows in kitchen
4. Frame bench under windows
5. plane all wood
6. get cabinet hardware for hidden cabinets in wood wall
7. create cabinets in wood wall
8. install wood wall
9. order cooktop, sink & faucet
10. Get and install countertop
11. Get new tempered glass for hallway to back porch door
12. Install that door
13. Find kitchen door
14. Install kitchen door

Ok, this list just really depressed me. I feel like we are never going to get this done. Ugh.

Here's a little shameless promo for Marc's new venture.... Amboy Road Street Hockey.


It's a new coed street hockey league here in Asheville. All you need are sneakers and a stick to play. It's open to everyone and it is tons of fun.

The first scrimmage is next Sunday at Carrier Park here in Asheville. If you are interested in playing, check out the blog at:

I think we might end up with soapstone after all. I just called the Charlotte branch and they just got larger sizes in stock!

If you remember, we were toying with other materials due to the $600+ shipping charge for the soapstone from NJ. Now that we can pick the stone up ourselves in Charlotte, the soapstone seems MUCH more doable!

I'll update as we know more info, but we **might** have them next weekend!

Marc put the hardware on yesterday and in order to do that, he had to take off the blue plastic! So after all this time, we finally get to see what the cabinets really look like. I love them! So crisp!

It's my birthday and in my Mom's great cheapskate tradition, she sent me my used Christmas card birthday card:

The new oven came in handy again! I made a cake for my friend Maggie's baby shower.


Many, many thanks to Karen at Off the Meat Hook for this amazing rainbow cake idea.
(I did not have good luck with the icing recipe, but the cake was a big hit.)


It was pretty darn tall, and required several skewers to keep it stabilized on the 45 minute drive up the mountain to the party. I'm happy to report that it made it safe and sound.





Here are some "The Making Of" photos too:

It looks a little odd right now just hanging out, but it will be clad on the sides and look more integrated when we do the wood bench and cabinet surrounds. I think we need a white filler panel for the space between it and the fridge too. (It was hung high to align with the tall cabinets on the other side of the window.)