The Growing Belly: 24 Weeks

A snapshot of the bellies at 24 weeks. So far, only one belly appears to growing...guys have it so easy!

Kitchen Remodel: End of Week 3

We ended our third week of the kitchen remodel. It was an easy week for me because I was working at the Agilent mother-ship in CA. What a treat to return home late Thursday night to a kitchen with nearly all the cabinets installed. All cabinets are officially in place. We're just waiting for the counter top template on Thursday. Once they have the template, we're expecting a 1 to 2 week wait for the installation. Then we're home free!

The amount of storage we now have is almost obscene. I guess we just didn't pay attention to how many cabinets we were squeezing into the space. Not a bad situation to be in but after living in the space limited Bay Area for five years, Doug and I have readily embraced the concept of less is more. Our hope is to stick with the "less is more" attitude throughout our lives!

It's a Boy

Doug's desire to know the gender of the baby was greater than my desire not to know the gender of the baby, so we took a peek during the 20 week ultrasound. The boy parts were very obvious. My practical side is pleased, but I'm most happy to report that so far, it's a HEALTHY baby boy.

We did not come home with many decent pictures of the baby. He was facing my back which made the butt shot and checking the organs easy. His position made it not so easy to get a nice profile picture. Oh well, in a few short months, we'll have real pictures.

In the mean time, I'm feeling kicking from the inside. Morgan and Doug have yet to feel movement from the outside.

Hugs and Kisses Anyone?

Kitchen Remodel: End of Week 2

Looking through the new wall opening.

Looking into the kitchen. The morning light is now apparent.

Week 2 involved drywall, texture, and painting. Messy work, but we got through it. The cabinets should go in next week. It's starting to look like a new kitchen!

Kitchen Remodel: End of Week 1

The new wall opening. By leaving the bit on the right we avoided the plumbing work in the basement. On Claude's suggestion, we left the bit on the left to balance out the opening.

Looking through the new wall opening. The light is amazing.

The plumbing in the wall was all moved to the left or lowered...without destroying our basement!

The copper plumbing now runs through the joists rather than below. The black pipe is the master bedroom toilet drain. It also was run through the joists and moved back toward the wall. Plus we now have can lights rather than the halogen box.

The new wall opening from inside the kitchen.

The first week of the remodel ended with a lot of progress. The old kitchen was demolished, the electrical was redone, and the plumbing was rerouted. The plumbing reroute turned out to be an easy project which was a pleasant surprise. We had been warned that the plumbing adjustments would possibly involve holes in the basement walls and ceilings. This turned out not to be the case. Everything was quickly moved around in less than a day without destroying our basement. The most amazing change is the amount of light that the kitchen receives now that the ceiling has been lifted up and the wall opened up. I expected that the changes to the wall would let in more light but I did not realize how much light was being blocked by the low ceiling. The eastern light that comes in from the windows and the skylight at the end of the kitchen now reaches the entire span. The skylight was so non-visible before that a few people did not realize we had one down there!

The Kitchen Remodel: Before Shots

The wall between the kitchen and the dining room which is coming down. The perpendicular wall at the end has to stay because it has duct work which was going to be a major pain to reroute.

Inside the kitchen: the wall opposite the wall which will be removed.

The wall between the kitchen and the dining room which is being removed.

Doug and I spent Christmas of 2004 remodeling the kitchen of our CA townhouse. We loved the finished product and completely appreciated it every time we used it. While we prefer our CO house, we still mourn the loss of our updated CA kitchen. So after two years, we decided it was time to get back a kitchen we love. What's even better is that this time around, we hired a contractor! Lack of time and desire aside, there was just too much work that we don't do to even consider doing the job ourselves. A wall is coming down and a ceiling is being raised. Both events require rerouting plumbing lines and are the bulk of the fee that we're paying the contractor. So while he's at it, we're having Claude do the whole thing.

The work started this morning but a snowstorm got things off to a slow start. The messy, demo work should begin tomorrow. In the mean time, I have included the soon to be forgotten "before" pictures. Estimated time of completion is 5-6 weeks.