December 17

Our day started in great anticipation of the building of our new kitchen. Gilberto arrived along with some of the cabinets and our day was under way.

The above pictures give an indication of what happened during the day. I especially enjoy the picture of Tom admiring the new fridge :)

One of my highlights was seeing the granite guys at work - all three seem to have their own job and get to it. Took lots of pictures of this process.

My new oven looks wonderful but not quite in place yet. So looking forward to using it. I also love my new sink although not quite sure why I got one big enough for all three grandchildren to bathe together. But I now have running water in the kitchen, a dishwasher and my powder room back. Oh, and did I mention that Eddie fixed our leaking ensuite sink? He did and we can now use it too. Thanks Eddie!

December 8

We got home from Tammy's and found a clean floor that had been sealed. Hopefully Thursday will finish off the sealing process and then we can move on to other things. Yeah!!!

December 6

The tile is almost finished! Maybe I should explain what I mean - the laying of the tile is almost finished.

Next is to clean it then apply two coats of sealer, then grout it then the last coat of sealer. We've been told we have to wait 72 hours after that before we start moving furniture back in. The calculations seem to be Friday would finish the sealing and we can't move furniture back in until Monday :( We were really hoping to be able to attack the house the end of the week and have it all cleaned.

We'll see what today (7th) brings

December 4

A little disappointing day today. Ran into trouble with heating cables so all work stopped. The hallway looks good and so does the great room as far as it's gone.

Really enjoying the day off - no noise, no open doors, no freezing feet. But we'll be ready to start up again tomorrow.

Decembr 3, 22010

The heating cable went in today but I discovered it isn't a cable at all, it's a thin little wire. I really want to make a joke of that but everything I've tried doesn't sound appropriate :)

So the cable is laid and the tile work has started. Tom says 'yipee' but being more sedate than Tom I would say 'wonderful'. Can't wait until tomorrow to see what happens.

Oh, by the way Gilberto came today and drew our island on the floor - we all agreed it looked really small and teased Gilberto a little. He's fun to tease because he doesn't always know when I'm joking lol.

December 2

The wire is down and the first layer of cement is done. So exciting no more tearing down, just building.

Things I've learned

- Tom is great with the vacuum cleaner :)

- not to get overwhelmed by things I can do nothing about (at least not yet)

- to just enjoy the process, we have some extremely nice people doing the work and Gilberto is such a pleasure. So glad he's directing us

December 1

Just a quick note for Jen to say this is what I saw this morning when I came out of our bedroom. The new wall still looks strange to my eye but then it hasn't been painted yet :)

Not feeling quite so stricken about the dirt, don't know why cause it's still there waiting to be cleaned. The work that got done Dec. 1 can't be mostly seen as it's behind walls - all the wiring for the new stove, new switches, new drywall where it was cut out. The wiring for the stove went much easier than expected and they didn't have to put any holes in the basement ceiling. Yeah!

Today they're nailing down the screening so things will move along much quicker.