Welcome to the world, Miles Andrew Champion!

Miles joined us after about 16 hours of labor on August 11, 2011. He arrived on the scene at 23:24 (I write it in military time because I like the sequence, not because I'm that engineer-y), weighed 7 lb 15 oz, and measured 20 1/2 inches long. He's not quite the chunker I thought he was going to be, but perfect in every way (including his bodacious cone head complements of being stuck at 3 - 4 cm for most of the day.

It was a long day, but not too painful or unpleasant. We got moved into a mother-baby room around 2:00 AM, and promptly sent Miles to the nursery so that Mom and Dad could get some much needed sleep.

We came home from the hospital yesterday, and have been working on figuring this parenting thing out. Miles is working on learning to sleep at night and not sleep during the day.

Izzy's attempting to help at every opportunity...

Beau-rito, Baby Benny, He-who-hasn't-been-named

Tomorrow Beau and my life will change. I'm being induced at 5:30 AM. Hopefully everything will be uneventful and our duo will become a trio.

I've been preparing myself for the last 3 weeks to be induced at my doctor's direction. I have gestational diabetes, and a relatively mild case of high blood pressure. I've been off of work and on home rest since 7/22. I don't like to call it bed rest, because that would imply that I was in bed the entire time; something I'm incapable of doing. Beau has been great at meeting my every need, and attempting to keep me calm and relaxed. He has watched horrible TV with me for hours on end, and even some pretty painful movies.

The rest of the world seems to think that I should be/am terrified of how my life is about to change, but I'm really not. Anxious? Sure. Nervous about how much this is actually going to hurt? Of course. But not scared. I've always said that God put me on this earth to be a mother, and tomorrow I get to start that journey.

Sorry for the totally disjointed post. I just felt like I should write something before my baby boy arrives.

Finally...

At long last we have a functioning kitchen and you have a blog post to read about it.  I have uploaded photos to picasa for your viewing pleasure.


Unfortunately, I have not been keeping up with this as well as I had originally planned and that results in a loss of some of the particulars of various hiccups along the way.  I will touch on some of them, but if you ever have a specific desire for a more detailed account of anything, let me know.  I don't want to bore everyone with every detail.


Well, the countertop install went fairly well.  It took the guys several hours to install the counters, but there weren't any major problems.  Because we chose to do an undermount sink, the sink had to be installed at the same time as the countertops.  It was hooked up (plumbing-wise) the following day.  Over the course of the next few days, I got the dishwasher, refrigerator and stove installed.  Of course, the range and dishwasher wouldn't just slide into their new home, so that took some extra cussing and finagling, but eventually they were in and happy.


The backsplash has yet to be installed.  My original plan was to attempt to tackle it myself, but with the impending arrival of the next generation, I think we'll pay someone to do it.  I'm dragging my feet right now because I became tired of spending money and worried about possible financial obligations associated with the family expansion.  I am finally relaxing a little and will probably get the ball rolling on that soon.   There are some other "punch list" items to which I need to tend.  I need to spray a few cabinet doors.  I have a couple of sheetrock repairs. Eventually, Jenny wants a new shelf unit built, painted and installed, but she has told me that there's no rush. 

There was a bit of kitchen sink fiasco which I don't feel like delving into.  The kitchen sink got clogged up, I tried to straighten it out and couldn't.  I called a plumber out (see previous posts to get a feel for my love of plumbers).  The plumber was friendly enough and not pushy.  He got the sink working again, but not before telling me that the cast iron drain pipe has rotted out underneath the slab.  It will eventually have to be replaced.  This costs north of $2K and will involve breaking up the slab in our dining room under our new tile floors in order to replace the offending section of pipe.  He reassured me that this is not uncommon and that he has presonally had to do this to over a dozen homes in my neighborhood because of the cast iron pipes that were used in construction 50 years ago.  Awesome.

In an effort to end on a positive note, we are thoroughly enjoying our new kitchen.  We are happy with how all of our ideas came together.  I have spent the last week and a half working on the new nursery so a blog post and pictures of that will follow shortly.  No, really, I mean it this time.  I will post again soon. :)

BEFORE

AFTER

Countertops and More

Our countertops will be installed today. Hopefully everything goes well, and there's a follow-up post this evening with pictures of a nearly complete kitchen. Beau has the applicances scheduled for delivery tomorrow, and the plumber lined up to take care of some small things. After that, all that's left is back splash.

I can't wait to have my kitchen back. A few weeks ago, I was instructed by my doctor to cut-out carbs to help manage my blood sugar, which I've done before, and it's totally managable... with a kitchen. Eating grilled chicken with vegetables from various take-out places around town has gotten old.

A lot of progress has also been made in the soon-to-be nursery. Mom came over last week and helped us move furniture out of it. Beau pulled up the carpet then painted and put down laminate wood floor. Thanks to Miranda for color selection, and Nathan, Michael, and Chris will the flooring help. It was quite nice to leave in the morning for a day at the spa with Miranda and friends and come home to a room with new flooring in it! Beau put trim up in the room this week, and we've been working on filling and caulking it. For obvious reasons, the kitchen has taken priority.

Hopefully pictures will follow soon!!

Getting closer...

Although the progress isn't visible, it is real.  The slabs for our counter tops have arrived in Baton Rouge!  Jenny and I went to check them out on Friday and choose how we want the counters to be cut from them.  The fabricator was happy, maybe even impressed, with the quality of the slabs.  We are now waiting for the fabricator to cut and finish the stone and then install!  I'm hoping that we can get them installed next week, but I'm probably being overly optimistic. 

Now it's time for a pair of rants and a rave.  

I hate plumbers.  No, really.  I am thoroughly convinced that plumbing is the single biggest rip-off in home renovation.  I got an estimate to run the gas line for our stove.  There are two different lines that can be tapped into that are easily accessible in our attic and don't require any long or complicated runs.  Yes, the line has to be plumbed down the wall.  It is not that big of a deal.  Guess what the estimate was.  Most people have guessed in the $500 range given the tone of my explanation.  $1000!  That's right, a grand for maybe $200 worth of material and probably 2 hours work.  He even readily admitted that this job was pretty straightforward. 

We ordered our sink from Amazon.  Jenny had a couple of gift cards that she had been awarded through work and their prices were reasonable.  We found an enameled cast iron undermount sink that we liked.  It shipped through a freight carrier because it was too big to ship via fed-ex, ups, etc.  I tracked down the carrier to schedule a delivery (long story - amazon was very helpful).  When the sink arrived, I opened it up to inspect it before signing off on the delivery.  Good thing I did, the sink was broken in two places.  That's special guys, you managed to break a cast iron sink, twice.  I sent it back and called Amazon.  Amazon said that since I had refused delivery, they could get another on its way immediately.  I asked if they could expedite the shipment, but because of the delivery method it wasn't an option.  Because they couldn't expedite it, they gave me $75 back (thanks!) and sent me another sink.  Lesson learned - Amazon rocks!

We ordered our hood vent from Homeclick.com.  It said "in stock" and probably still does on their website.  I called customer service because the ship on date came and went.  The guy said he would have to contact a vendor and get back to me.  (Isn't it in stock?)  He didn't get back in touch with me.  The following week I call again.  "The computer says it's in our warehouse.  That means it should ship out tomorrow if it didn't go today. Let me put you on hold while I contact our warehouse."  *hold*  "Uh, they aren't answering their phone.  It probably shipped out today or will tomorrow.  Sorry you didn't get contacted after your last call, the computer must have screwed up."  Doubtful.  Amazon sent me 2 sinks via freight carriers in the time it sent Homeclick to fed-ex me one in-stock item.  Customer Service - unsatisfactory.  I DO NOT RECOMMEND HOMECLICK.

Being without a kitchen sink and counter tops has been a bit annoying, but hopefully the kitchen will be usable soon!  After counter tops, appliances go in and then backsplash and we are done!  

That's when work begins on the nursery... :)

I haven't forgotten about this!

The Kitchen remodel is still putting along.  I didn't post for a long time because most of the work that was done was little stuff (like finishing the sheet rock behind the fridge, removing cabinet doors, etc.) that wasn't really interesting.  Now, we are finally in the homestretch.

The kitchen was painted a couple of weeks ago and it didn't go swimmingly.  I think perhaps my expectations were too high, you be the judge.

When it came to painting the cabinets, I decided to call in an expert for a few reasons.  First, I know how long it takes me to paint and I knew that a professional could get the job done more quickly.  Second, I wanted the super smooth finish of an airless sprayer.  These tools are awesome pieces of equipment that require experience (that I don't have) to operate.  Third, by the time I rented all of the tools and masked everything off, it would be worth my time and money just to hire someone.

Expectations:  I got a couple of estimates from guys with good reputations. (All of the painting done on my house had been performed by me up to this point so I had to rely on other people's experiences for guidance.)  I ended up hiring the less expensive guy because he was more confident that he could get to me in less than 6 weeks.  (Apparently the painting business is good right now.)  I expected the results to be better than something I could have done myself.  I expected a near flawless, glossy, smooth finish.  I expected that they would do all of the necessary prep work (which I had pretty much spelled out when the estimates were written).  I expected the job to take about 3 days (less than 8-hour days) of work.

In order to avoid going into every detail, they didn't prep nearly as thoroughly as I do, used equipment that was in need of repair and consequently had to basically start all over.  They had to sand through the paint, primer and previous finish to get down to bare wood in many spots because they hadn't prepared the surface properly.  The work took over a week to get finished because of all of the extra work that had to be done.  The cabinets didn't come out as well as I had hoped.  I am now having to come behind and touch up (something I was really hoping to avoid.)

Things the painter did right: he was good about staying in touch with me and communicating his plan.  He never ducked my phone calls and was professional about everything.  In the end he knocked $100 off of his original estimate because he was disappointed in how the job went.  I'm pretty sure he ended up losing money on the job as a result.

Is this a case of if you want the job done right, do it yourself?  Should I have used a different painter?  Should my expectations have been less lofty?  The short of it is that I have been mulling this over for a while and I still don't know.  Everybody has a bad day, I know that.  This guy didn't react badly when things didn't go his way,  which is something that many contractors do.  He lowered the price in the end because he knew that he and I were both disappointed in the job.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that he also painted the sheet rock I had just finished, the trim I had just installed, the pocket door to the laundry room and the sheetrock on the bar/peninsula; all things that were not included in the estimate.  Also, don't get me wrong, the pictures will look good.  The flaws are relatively small but numerous and noticeable close up.

By the way, I'm better at finishing sheet rock that I thought.  It did take me considerably longer than it would a professional, though.

Don't forget to check out the pictures on Picasa.

Tile!

Well, after one small headache, the tile is being finished up.  We ran short on tile yesterday which prevented them from being able to lay all of the tile in one day which is pretty impressive.  Since the tile was not something the flooring supply had in stock, I was afraid that we would have to wait until next week to get the two boxes (12 tiles) we needed to finish.  Thankfully, the salesman at Prosource was able to track down a distributor in town who had some on hand.  After being told that they didn't have any from the same lot as ours, it turned out that they did and we were back in business.

The tile masons are finishing up the grout right now and should (I think) be done by lunchtime.  Yay!  I can't express how happy I am to be done with the broken, peeling vinyl floor.  It was disgusting, ugly and a tripping hazard.  Hopefully I can get some painters out here next week to give me a quote on painting the cabinets and get the cabinet guy back out here to measure for doors.  Let's keep some momentum going!

Incidentally, I also had a small roofing repair which I was able to get done on Tuesday.  Some of the shingles on our ridge vent were damaged in a recent storm.  I probably wouldn't have noticed it if Jenny hadn't pointed it out.  Twenty bucks in materials and about 45 minutes or so of work to get it fixed.  Not too shabby.

Pictures of the new floor to come soon.