A Wonderful Work In Progress

I have had such a wonderful week. The only downside has been how quickly the time has flown by. Despite the impossible clock, I have gotten so much done and am tickled with the results of this house transforming into our home!

Perhaps the main root of my happiness this week is that the kitchen cabinets are finally done! What a project! I am happy with the results but hope to never do kitchen cabinets again. My fingers still throb from all the hard work! It didn't help that I happened to gel-stain my cabinets during the most humid week of the year, thanks to our monsoon season. It took much longer than I was expecting, just for the different layers of stain and polyurethane to dry. I got away with one layer of gel stain but was tortured enough to put three coats of polyurethane on top. I don't want these guys to get damaged! By the end, though, I was so tired of the job, and also perhaps a little loopy from all the fumes. But here it is. My kitchen. We hung the cabinet doors on Tuesday night and drilled holes for the new egg-shaped knobs that we installed. I love them. Actually, I love everything about this kitchen.

John assembled our new lawn mower on Monday night to tame the jungles of grass out front. He really likes the lawn mower we bought during 4th of July sales, so that is good news for me. John will love mowing the lawn and do it lots! I doubt he will let me touch that machine, and that's fine with me. I keep busy enough without having to worry about all the landscaping.

We got appliances delivered a week and a half ago, but they haven't all been put to use until just the past few days. Since the kitchen cabinets were finally done, my sister and I put together the electrical range and installed it (that's right...girl power! I won't tell you how long it took, just that we did it!). We couldn't get it to go quite all the way back to the wall and decided to wait for John's help. Turns out, all that was needed was some brute force, which he was happy to provide. A new oven! And no, I haven't baked anything in it yet. Maybe tonight for dinner? I have been so busy with projects. I look at the clock and see that it's 8:30 PM. Oops...what about dinner?! T'liese and Evan came over to help me clean and get the house ready for our first night of sleeping here, which was Wednesday night. I can't even begin to describe how nice it is to not have to drive away each night. And how wonderful it was to wake up in OUR HOUSE! I am in love with this place.

I enhanced our walk-in closet in the master suite yesterday and am rather proud of myself. I can't pat my back too long for being so dern handy, simply because I will consequently mess something up. But I installed our new shoe rack and an additional clothes bar. I am happy with the results and only need to buy a shelf to top the new rack. Perhaps I should move our clothes over today, since John discovered he had no pants for work when we woke up this morning. How bad of a wife can I be?! No cooking, and now no pants, either?! He puts up with a lot, I tell you.

It wasn't intentional to purchase new dishes and glasses for our new home, but I couldn't help myself three months ago when I stumbled upon ones I love that were super on sale. I took it as a sign of fate and bought enough to feed twelve people! Yes, twelve. So come over! It was fun to scrub all the new dishes yesterday and place them in my shiny new cabinets. Did I mention I am glad to have those finished? Now I can begin assembling our house so we can live in it! I love my dishes, though. And the glasses make me so happy. EVERYTHING makes me so happy in this place! I've decided to keep it.

We had to remove an old cabinet and install a new one to make room for our new massive microwave. I didn't want the microwave taking up valuable countertop space, and the over-the-range hood had certainly seen better days. We bought an unfinished cabinet that was three inches shorter, and while we were at Lowes, we also bought the microwave that I have been drooling over for months. With the cabinet in place, I could begin staining it with all the others. Luckily, it stained the same color and looks perfect! And the microwave? It makes my heart go pitter-pat.

That's it for now. I have been so busy this week that I haven't even turned on my computer. Now that an update has been made, I am back to work to get this place put together! Thanks to help from Cousin Tyler and borrowing a truck from Uncle Ben and Aunt Nanette last night, we were able to move the rest of the big items to the house. And no rainstorm to battle the entire time! I have my work cut out for me today to get things where they need to be. I am enjoying the process but sure like end results, too. Also, I would love to fill that new fridge with some food! I haven't been grocery shopping for over a month, since I was anticipating a move and didn't want to move much. Now that Behemoth (my fridge's new name) is happily sitting in my new kitchen, I think it's time to go crazy at the grocery store! I hope I can get everything done in time...we have in-laws coming to spend the weekend! I better get to work so it is livable!