Here we go again...

Once again we have a dumpster in the driveway and a port-o-potty behind the shed. That can only mean more renovation work is about to commence. Yep, we are entering phase 2 of our overall renovation plan. This time we are working on the master bedroom/bath and converting the old game room to a multi-use media room.

We utilized our favorite architect, Ryan Conway, and RHD will again be our contractor.

The media room was originally a game room but in actuality has been almost everything but a game room. Our first use of this room was as a home daycare room while Monica finished her teaching degree. Over the years it has been a family/TV room, an office, a bedroom, a temporary kitchen and, most recently, a storage room.

Our first inclination was to turn in into a dedicated home theater with two rows of theater seating with the back row on a platform.  However,  during a recent party, we realized that theater seating just would not really work for when we have parties. So we will just have a traditional family room setup with a sofa, love seat and chair while still being able to use it as a home theater.  We will move our current white leather furniture from the family room and purchase new furniture for the family which makes Monica very happy.


We purchased a new 3D HD projector along with a wall mounted, fixed frame, 120 inch screen. 

The wainscoting will come out and the wall on the left will have the screen.  The screen takes up roughly half of the wall and we will paint that wall with a dark blue flat paint.  There will be five of the 7.2 speakers on this wall.  Andy purchased two tower front surround speakers and center speaker.  We will also have two surround speakers up at the ceiling as the height speakers.

On this wall will be some wall cabinets with glass doors to hold all of the components including the projector (hopefully).  Alternatively the projector could be ceiling mounted.  There will be a pocket style door installed on this side of the wall and will slide over to cover the door when we want to darken the room for movie watching.

This closet will be re-worked to become a niche for the kegerator Andy bought.  To the right of that the wall will be firred out a little over two feet to have a niche to install some cabinets.  Again we will use IKEA cabinets as they have worked out well for us in the kitchen.  We like some dark black-brown cabinets with perhaps a bright red countertop with a white backsplash.  Oh yea, we will also have an under-counter ice maker as well.

We are really excited about the media room.

Finally, we are going to finish our master bath and update the master bedroom.  The master suite has always been the absolutely last priority when looking at projects.  If you recall, Andy started working on the Master bath and closet before we started the big addition project replacing the vanities, sinks, sink faucets, mirrors and light fixtures...and it still is not finished.  Andy also started building some custom closet components which are now being replaced with an Elfa system from The Container Store.

So, what are we doing then?  Well, we are pretty much gutting the half of the bathroom that has the toilet, tub and shower.  We are purchasing a nice tub for Monica that has hot air bubbles and a heated backrest.  Andy will get  a totally new shower with four body sprays and a frameless glass enclosure.  We will also add a glass block window just above the tub.  The additional light from the glass block window and the glass shower enclosure will really open up and modernize the space.

This entire wall will be gutted and rebuilt resulting in a more open feeling space.

There will be a nice new tub and a glass block window here.

RHD will be out on Thursday to begin.  Hopefully, both rooms will be completed in about 4-5 weeks.  Once RHD has the master bath complete, Andy will finish up the master bedroom.  We will repaint, install new flooring and RHD will add some can lights

In the meantime, all four adults will share the guest bathroom and we have turned Karen's bedroom into a daycare for our animals... don't worry, Karen just recently moved out to her own apartment.  In addition, our dining room is now a storage area for items that we had to move out of the construction zones.

The dining room now holds a lot of stuff including the popcorn machine, the kegerator and all of the new master bedroom furniture.

 Keep tuned to follow our progress.

Yeay - a Dining Room .... Finally!!

Well, it has been over a year since the start of the remodeling project.  More like a year and a half if you count the initial planning and architecture phases.  And Andy still has a long road to go.  But, there is still progress to report.... finally!!  He made it just in time for the annual Halloween bash!!  Otherwise, he would have been in real trouble.

The last report was in late July when the kitchen was finished.  The next room scheduled was to convert the former living room into a dining room.  The old dining room was so small that, during a dinner party, if one person had to get up, several had to also get up.  Monica always wanted a large dining room so it was a natural to convert the old living room in to a formal dining room once we lost the old dining room to the stairwell.

Along with the dining room, we also re-did the little hallway off of the dining room.

Short after completing the kitchen, Andy was surveying the living getting a handle on what tasks he needed to accomplish.  He opened the doors to the wet bar and, whoa, it was really ugly and decided something needed to be done.  The house was built in the mid 1980's and the bar really looked the part.  It had yucky formica counter top, a smoked mirror back, glass shelves and a real ugly globe light fixture.  It had to go.

The idea Andy came up with was to convert it to an small open wet serving area.  He decided to use black granite tile on the counter and some black/white mosaic tile leftover from the entry floor on the wall.  He had to remove and lower the counter to file the tile, install the wall tile, install new faucet and new light fixture.

 

The wall tile is the same as the entry flooring trimmed at the top and bottom with the black granite tile used on the countertop.  New faucet, light fixture and electrical outlet/switch covers.

The doors and drawers need to be added but the upper part will remain open.

Then the usual tasks had to be done.  Wall and ceiling prep.  Paint ceiling.  Prime areas that were repaired or were new.  Then time to paint the walls.  We decided to use the same red used as accent walls which is similar to the previous color but much darker and richer with white trim.  Andy wanted to bring some of the other colors as well so he decided to use gray below the chair rail.  Painting was a bit of a pain with all of the picture frame molding.  Very tedious and time-consuming.

The old flooring was removed and Andy installed the same flooring as in the great room.  The flooring was much less tedious than the painting.  We also bought new fireplace doors and curtains. 

Andy finished the room a couple of weeks before the Halloween party in time to bring some of the furniture out of storage and to decorate before the festivities.

Looking from the entry.  New paint, new flooring, new fireplace doors, new curtains, light fixture a the correct lenght and some art on the walls.  The two small painting on the far wall were painted by Monica.  Eventually we will add the armoir that Monica inherited in place of the glass table next to the far wall.

From the other side of the room you can see the newly renovated wet bar and the other wine cabinet whose tops fold out to make a nice serving area.

Looking toward the entry.  A hutch is on the right.  As you can see, there is actually room to fit the table with both leaves and all chairs with room left over.

We are please with how the dining room turned out.  Now that the big Halloween extravaganza is over, Andy is turning his attention to the next room converting the old den into the TV room with something extra.

Somehow Andy will need to incorporate this huge kegerator into the TV room.  This goes along with his new hobby of home brewing beer.  Should be interesting to see what he comes up with.
 

Still chugging along...

It's been a couple of months since the last post, so it's time for an update.

The progress has been painfully slow unfortunately.  We thought we would be much further along than we are.  But that's life especially when the labor is cheap!  But, nonetheless we are still making progress. 

For the most part, we are finished with the new additions with the exception of a few minor items.  We are now moving into the pre-existing rooms.

Andy put the finishing touches on the kitchen.  He had to do a little bit of electrical work to add an additional light above the sink as part of the prep work before installing the backsplash.  Once the backsplash was done, the trim along the bottom of the cabinets was added as well as some trim above the fridge.

The light above the sink adds some much needed illumination in the sink area.  This whole workarea now has plenty of light.  The backsplash is red, white and black glass mosiac tiles.  While time-consuming, they actually went up easily.  The trim around the bottom of the cabinets is hard to see in this pic, but does a good job of hiding the light fixtures. 

Here is how the backsplash looks in the cooking area.  Andy decided to take the backsplash only up to the hood light and paint above that.  He used the same blue that is seen in the stairway and upstairs just to bring a little of that color into the great room.  Again the trim was added around the bottom of the cabinets to finish it.

That pretty much finishes the kitchen.  We are extremely happy with how it turned out.  We've always wanted a nice big, sleek and modern-looking kitchen.  But you can't please everyone.  Karen was working on some type of baking project and complained that the kitchen was too big because she had to walk too much to get the items she needed.  Awww...  Anna, our live-in personal chef, aka our oldest daughter, has not complained.  She seems to enjoy cooking in this kitchen, especially compared to the tiny one we had before.

The first task in the old part of the house is to re-purpose the old living room into a dining room.  But first we had to move some things around as we were still using that space as a living room.  We moved the white leather furniture and the media center into the great room sitting area until we the new media room is done. 

The great room sitting area is a tad too small as a media room with this furniture.  In fact, there was not even room for the sub-woofer and it had to be put just inside the back room.  But fortunately, it is just temporary...somewhat.  If you are sitting on the left side of sofa by the window you get a real close up view of the TV.

Next we had to move the remaining office furniture from the back room (ie: the new media room) to the office upstairs.  This primarily consisted of Monica's desk, her scrapbook storage units and a couple of shelves.

The huge office does not look so empty now.

Then we, of course, had to move the rest of the furnishings out of the old living room to make room for transforming it into a formal dining room.

One feature of the old living room was a small wet bar.  Now that we have the big bar in the great room, we really didn't need a bar per se.  Besides, that "bar" really needed an update.  The old bar was ugly with a formica counter top, smoked glass mirrors on the back, glass shelving and an ugly light fixture.  So 1980s.  Andy decided it needed an update and the only thing worth keeping was the sink.

We decided to use it more as a serving area.  The original bar had doors that enclosed the upper part.  We've decided to leave that open and just have doors on the lower half.  We had some extra boxes of the black/white marble mosiac tile that we used in the entry and stair risers, which we decided to use along with the same black granite tile from the trim/transitions in the entry and kitchen.  Andy removed everything including the counter top.  He had to reinstall the counter top just a bit lower so that the tile would be even with the frame.  The tiling wasn't too bad except there was a lot of cutting of the black tiles around the sink, for the trim around the counter and around the top.  He installed a black switch and outlet with a black cover.  We added a more modern hanging light fixture.  Unfortunately, we did not like any of the traditional tall bar faucets and bought a normal lavatory faucet which had a drainpipe that wouldn't work with a thin stainless steel sink.  Andy had had to improvise a solution and ended up getting a nice push button drain for the sink that he made work. 

Now to work on the rest of the dining room.

The old living room which will become the new formal dining room.  You can see the new serving station on the right and the dining room light fixture hanging from the ceiling.  Once the furniture is back in, those lights will be lowered to the appropriate height.  The color scheme stay pretty much the same but we will repaint using the shade of red that is in the new addition.  We will replace the fireplace doors, new window treatments and replace the current pergo with the same engineered hardwood that we used in the new addition.

In the meantime, it is extremely HOT, HOT, HOT in Dallas.  We hope everyone has a nice summer.  Stay cool and safe.

Still working it!!

Wow!!  It's been nearly five months since we've done an update....  But have been chipping away at the tasks despite the lack of blog update.  Unfortunately, it has been busy outside of this remodeling project.. all of that real life stuff you know.  Most of January and February was lost due to a big work project Andy had in Jan, the passing of Monica's mom at the end of January and Monica getting back to working on her Master's degree.  In spite of that we have made some progress, particularly over the past few weeks as we geared up for a big party.

Here is a quick summary of what we've done since the end of Dec.

So that we can stuff things away, we installed some basic shelving in the upstairs closets.  This is just some bare wood modular shelving from IKEA.  It's not great looking but is very functional and configurable.

This is the new upstairs storage closet.  There is deeper ~24" shelving on the left and 12" shelving on the right.  It filled up in no time mostly with Monica's scrapbook stuff.  Andy was able to snag a shelf or two.

The same shelving system is installed in the two small office closets.  This closet will become a technology closet where Andy will put routers, switches, computers, etc.

The room at the top of the stairs has become an exercise room.  Andy purchased a recumbent bike and a weight machine.  The weight machine was a bit of a bear to assemble.  We also have an elliptical and a treadmill still in storage.  Most likely we will only add the treadmill and get rid of the elliptical.  We'll also put a small LCD TV in here with a DVD player for exercise DVD's.

The "gym"!!  Probably won't get a lot of use until after the renovation is done.

The next big project was the entryway and stairs.  We painted the trim along the stairs and in the entryway and the closet door.  We had already purchased the tile several months ago as they were a special buy.  The tiles are a mosaic of white marble and black polished granite.  We decided to purchase some black granite tiles as transitions between rooms. 

This is the tile we purchased many months ago for the entry and stair risers.  As you can see it is white marble (probably Caldera??) rectangles surrounding a small black square of what is most likely some type of black granite.  The white has bits of gray highlights thrown in.

This is looking from the top of the stairs.  You can see the various gradations of gray in the white marble.  Cuts of black granite tile is used as transitions in the three passage ways.

A closer picture of the entry tile.  In the corner with stairs we will put a small teak secretary that Monica got from her mom's house.  It should fit perfectly.

We used the same mosiac tile on the stiar risers will a small strip of the black granite.

 
After the entryway it was time to start on the "great room" which includes the kitchen, breakfast nook and sunroom.  We had to finish off the painting.  The trim, window sills and doors had to be painted.  The walls had to be touched up especially around the edges.

For the kitchen, we wanted to extend a similar look with white marble and black granite.  We decided on 12" x 12" white Carrera marble tiles with  3" black granite tile strips trimmed around the cabinets and 12" x 12" black granite tiles as transitions to the sunroom and breakfast room.

It was a lot of work over several weekends to lay the kitchen tile but we think it was worth the effort.  You can see the same type of white/gray tile as in the entry mosaic but in a larger 12" x 12" tile.  The same black granite look was used as trim around the cabinets and as transitions between the kitchen and the rest of the "great room".  It's hard to see but the toe kicks have a stainless steel look.

The black granite was also used as a landing for the back door.  You can see Andy checking out how the hardwood will look against the black.

We wanted some type of wood for the rest of the "great room" (ie: the breakfast area and sunroom)  We looked around quite a bit for wood flooring and almost decided on a dark solid bamboo but we just kept coming back to an engineered wood from Thomasville.  The core is high-density fiberboard and the top hardwood layer is Brazillian Jatoba with a Cherry Amaretto finish.  Andy happened to find a closeout sale online at Home Depot for 30% off and free shipping.  He just couldn't resist and purchased 1800 sq ft of the stuff.  Nope.. the great room is not 1800 sq ft!!  This flooring will also be installed throughout the rest of the downstairs including the formal dining room, master bedroom, the other two bedrooms and both hallways.  We should have a good bit leftover for future repairs or expansion.

The breakfast nook and the sunroom sections of the "great room".  The 12 x 12 black granite tile is used as the transition between the kitchen and the other areas.

The bar in the great room.  One of our favorite features in the house.  Notice the "stainless steel" looking toe kicks.  You can see the stainless steel look toe kick better here.

We also installed shades in the sunroom and in the office.

We installed the same blinds upstairs as well.  These are Levelor cell blinds with a cordless lift system.

We got all of this done just in time for our Cinco de Mayo celebration, affectionately known as Drinko de Mayo!  We got a lot of comments about the floor, especially from folks who had seen the bare concrete floor that we've been living with since last fall.

There are still several things left to do in the great room.  We still have to finish the baseboard quarter round trim, install another light fixture over the sink in the kitchen, install the backsplash tile on two walls and add trim to the cabinets.  Then the kitchen will pretty much be finished.

BUT... there's always a but isn't there....  While this will mostly complete all of the new addition, there is still the formal dining room, the media room, the master bedroom, the guest bedrooms and the hallways.  Oh yea.. still have to finish the hobbit hole closet under the stairs.  Whoo boy!  Then finally, after that, Andy will get to work on his garage man-cave.

It wasn't all just work.  Andy upgraded and added some audio/video components.  He purchased to "placeshifter" units, called Vulkano, that connect to the FIOS set top boxes and the network.  This allows us to watch live TV on various clients like iPads, iTouches and our Android phones.  He also added a USB disk drive to each so that we can record shows/movies that can be downloaded to our clients for offline viewing.  Monica can now enjoy TV in her bath.  Anna can now record shows and movies to watch on her iTouch while at the gym.

Our Samsung big screen DLP TV is 3D capable.  Unfortunately it uses the checkerboard format whereas the Top/Bottom or Side-to-Side formats are the primary formats used these days.  However, Mistubishi has an adapter that works with legacy Mitsubishi and Samsund DLP systems and converts new 3D formats to the checkerboard format used by these TVs. So, Andy had to purchase this adapter to keep up with his Geek club membership.  Of course, he had to upgrade to a new 3D Blu-ray player and upgrade the AV receiver to support 3D.  Just like when he adopted HDTV 10 years ago, there is not a plethora of content available  but it is growing.  He is hoping that the Mavericks make it to the NBA finals because they will be broadcast on the ESPN 3D channel.  Monica really enjoyed watching Tangled in 3D

Stay tuned, this blog will have more updates!  We will try to update more often.

It's been a while..

We realize that it has been nearly a month with no new posts.  It has been busy though.  Andy works a few hours most nights after his day job at IBM and most of the weekend.  In addition there has been several dinner parties and other social events including a number of dinner parties that Monica has given in spite of the state of completeness of the house.  She loves to show it off and entertain.


So, the question is: what have we gotten done in the last number of weeks since the last update?

 If you recall from the last post, we were waiting for an installation date for the granite, so Andy really could not proceed much more with the kitchen.  So, what to do next?  He considered working on the tile for the entry and stairway, but Monica wanted to put the Christmas tree in the corner of the stairway and she got her way, of course.

The tree looks nice in spite of the unfinished trim around the stairs.

But Monica wasn't happy with just one tree... she added two more.

The living room (future dining room) received it's usual treatment.

Even the unfinished sunroom has a tree.

That lead to the decision to start working upstairs.  Over the last few weeks, Andy has been busy caulking the trimwork, filling in nail holes, priming and painting the trim and touching up paint.  With the walls and trim in decent shape it was time to install flooring.  Since the upstairs is mostly office with rolling chairs, we wanted something pretty durable.  We chose to go with a laminate product.

We installed laminate in the house about ten years ago.  While very functional and not really too bad looking, it was still looked like laminate.  Laminate technology has really progressed over the last decade.  Andy found a really nice Pergo laminate that emulates very closely a hand scraped hickory hardwood.  And it happened to match the stair treads fairly close in color.

It took a good weekend and a few evenings to install the flooring.  It was actually pretty easy with the new click and lock technology.  Much easier than the first time he installed laminate a decade before.  It also helped that he had much better power tools this time, especially for those intricate cuts required around door frames.  The table saw, miter saw and jig saw was indispensable.  It took another few evenings to install the transitions and quarter round.  We are now ready to start moving in office furniture.

A close-up of the Pergo.  Very realistic looking.  In fact, it fooled my contractor.

A view of the office.  The floor looks really nice in this room.  You can see one zone (Sonos S5) of Andy's wireless Sonos music system and his iPad which has an app to control the Sonos.  He brought it from the master bedroom so he could have some music to work by.

Another view of the office.  The pocket doors lead into the exercise nook.

The other side of the pocket doors leading into the office.  Ryan designed in a nice recess and we used the red from downstairs and the blue from upstairs to frame it in color.

The exercise nook looking from the office.  At the edge of the picture on the right is the passage to the stairs leading down to the entry.

Andy still needs to terminate the data networking (cat 6) and video networking (RG6) cables to the office and nook.  The holes you see in the office and nook walls is where the data and video cables will terminate.  Also, the pocket doors still need pulls and handles.  Otherwise, the office and nook are done.

During one of the first really cold nights, Andy discovered that the new upstairs HVAC unit was not putting out warm air.  Our contractor, Pat, sent out the HVAC guys and they found that the heating element was bad and replaced it.  Such is the joys of remodeling.  Fortunately, the heater upstairs wan't  needed much as the warm air from downstairs along with the sun from the south-facing windows, keeps it warm up there.

In the meantime the installation of the kitchen granite finally got scheduled.  Andy had to take a diversion from working upstairs to prepare for the installation of the granite.  In the sunroom, he had to put on his electrician's hat and run a new electrical connection for the under-counter beverage cooler.  He had to remove the wonderful 3/4 in plywood temporary counter tops and the put on his plumbers hat (and droopy plumber's pants) and uninstalled the plumbing for the sink and remove the sink as well.

Finally the day of the granite installation came and the installers arrived early and got to work.  It was a bit of a challenge for them to bring in one particular slab.  It was 10 feet long and weighed close to 500 pounds.  There was another slab that was about the same size but did have a nice big hole for the sink so it wasn't quite as heavy.  It took them most of the morning to install the 67.5 square feet of black galaxy granite.

Black galaxy granite is a beautiful deep black granite with flecks of gold, silver and  even some red reflectors.  More info can be found at http://stone-network.com/india/granite/black_galaxy.html.

This is a close-up of our black galaxy granite. The reflectors look different depending on which lights are on and from which direction the light is reflecting.  It is a very beautiful and interesting stone.

Then once the stone was in, then Andy had to re-install the sink faucets and drain plumbing including a new top line garbage disposal.  Fortunately, as the sink is an undermount, the granite guys installed that.  Andy finished the sink cabinet by installing the panels, doors and handles which brings the total to 68 handles installed.  Finally the kitchen cabinetry is finished.  Well, that's not quite correct.  There is cabinet trim work to be done once the backsplash has been installed.

The cooking station of the kitchen with Monica preparing for one of the several dinner parties we've had.

Looking from the cooking station down the kitchen to the bar.  We decided on one big and deep sink and are really happy about that decision.  The faucet is one of those Delta touch faucets.  You can just touch the faucet to turn it on and off.  Very handy when your hands are covered in batter or chicken fat, etc.

To finish off the bar, we ordered some under cabinet glass and wine racks. Now the bar looks like a bar!

The bar! We are extremely happy with the result.  While the kitchen cabinet layout was designed even before we hired an architect, this is pretty much a late edition.  Once the house plans were finalized, we had one leftover cabinet and this additional wall space.  We decided to turn it into a major bar area.  What a great bonus!!!

It hasn't been all work and no play.  We have had a number of dinner parties with friends and family.  It is quite a hoot to see the facial expressions when folks see the renovations for the first time.  From the time we open the door and they see a beautiful staircase where a dining room used to be, to the huge open area where a very much divided kitchen, breakfast nook, sunroom and patio used to be to the huge office area upstairs, they are really surprised with the change.  Once the shock is over, then it is down to some serious eating and partying.

One evening over the Thanksgiving, Karen was having a gathering of her friends most of whom live outside of Dallas now.  Andy and Monica were in there room listening to each person as they came in.  The usual expression was something like "Holy Sh*t" when they first walked in and another one when they walked into the kitchen.  We got a great laugh from that.

Next on Andy's list of projects are 1) moving the office to the new space upstairs 2) installing tile on the back door step and 3) installing the backsplash in the kitchen.  Of course, like most projects, plans can change.  We will post back after the new year with an update to see how much he really gets done over the holidays.

Thanks for following our journey this year.  With the wedding and the renovations, it was really an exiting 2010 for us.  We're hoping that 2011 will be a bit more calmer.  Here's hoping you have a joyous holiday season and that 2011 brings you much happiness and enjoyment!

Murphy and Tigger enjoying some nice weather and reflecting on the past year.

Still working on the cabinets...

The focus is still on the cabinets. During the week, as time permitted, Andy installed the cabinet hardware... 66 handles!!!  Then over the weekend, he added some accent lighting to the sunroom cabinets and trimmed them out by adding panels and trim. 

In the meantime, Monica did what she does best, shopping.  Buying more things to fill up all of these new cabinets.  She bought things like martini glasses, beer glasses, drink glasses, party serving dishes, trash cans and so on.  So on Sunday, she started putting things away into the cabinets now that they have handles.

Unfortunately we don't yet have a date for the granite installation so Andy can't install the backsplash or finish trimming out the kitchen.

However the big news is that the dumpster is gone from the driveway and we can park there again!!  It is nice with the extra width that we added.  No more stepping in mud or on wet grass.  Yay!!  I'm sure the neighbors are happy that we have two less cars parked on the street.

The pantry cabinets around the fridge can now be pulled out and used.  The new trash can is controlled by an IR sensor and will automatically open and close.. gotta love geeky gadgets, even in a trash can!!!

The cooking center had lots of handles to install with all of those drawers.  You can see the Monica has started organizing things with her new canisters.

The long wall o' cabinets extends all the way through to the sunroom.  Lots and lots of handles to install.  You can see the all important margarita machine on the counter just just to the right of the tall cabinet.  The margarita machine and the coffee maker will be relocated to the sunroom once the granite is in.

This is where Andy spent his weekend. 

 The original design was just the coffee counter in the right corner and called for one florescent light fixture.  So there was only the one box for wiring lighting below the wall cabinet on the right.. you can see it is now covered with a white plate. 

Andy purchased some LED light kits from IKEA.  Four strips of white for under the cabinet and four strips for above the cabinet.  Inside each cabinet is a strip of multicolor LED lights that look great with the frosted glass doors. 

Andy needed electricity at the top of the cabinets.  So he had to run Romex from the connection up to the top of the cabinets and added two surface mounted outlet boxes al controlled by one switch.  He then had to mount the LED strips below, in and above the cabinet and run all the connectors through the cabinets.  He pretty much spent all of Saturday doing electrical work and installed the accent lights.

Sunday was spend installing decorative panels on the sides and underneath the cabinets.  And at the top, he installed 2.5" decorative trim to finish framing the cabinets which had the benefit of hiding all of the wiring and controls for the lights and speakers.

The box on top of the cabinets in the middle is a zone of the wireless whole-house audio system made by Sonos with two nice Bose speakers on each end.  Andy had to build platforms to raise the Sonos box and speakers so the wouldn't be partially covered by the trim.

Then Monica populated the base cabinets and the beverage cooler with liquor and wine.  Glasses will go in the cabinets.  Andy may add stemware hangers underneath the cabinets at some future point.

You get the full effect of the accent lighting in this pic.  The LEDs had just turned green and is a nice contrast with the red walls. 

The next step depends on when the granite is installed.  If it happens to get installed before Thanksgiving weekend, then Andy can work on the backspash and cabinet trimming in the kitchen.  Othewise, he may start working on the entry or start on the flooring in the great room.  Tune in next week to see what happens.

Recovery

Well, it has been over two weeks since the last post which was, of course, about the big party, aka Anna and Courts' wedding.  We are really still recovering from the hectic couple of months leading up to the wedding.  However, as you saw in the last posting, it was a fantastic event! 

The Swiss contingent that you have heard so much about had a great time.  Monica's biological father, Hans, and his wife Leila left on the Monday after the wedding.  However, the two nephews and their significant others stayed on another week.  So, there was no resting.  There was a lot of eating and imbibing of good beverages.  I don't think we've have ever gone thru so much beer in one week.

Monica had a couple of days off but Andy had to go back to work on Monday.  So, he missed all the daytime activities like shopping, the Dallas World Aquarium, Denton, etc. But somehow he managed to make all of the evening activities which was mostly eating and drinking.  They particularly loved going to the steakhouse as steaks are extremely expensive in Switzerland and not quite as big as in Texas! 

Angelo can't believe that he ate the whole thing while Deborah looks very sleepy.

Marco and Corrine having a great time.

The highlight of the week was the trip to the Dallas Stars hockey game.  Both Marco and Angelo play hockey in Switzerland and are huge hockey fans.  They know a lot more about the NHL than we do.  Angelo said the best part of week was walking into the American Airlines Arena and seeing the hockey rink for the first time.

This was the absolute favorite part of the week after the wedding.

Marco and Angelo wore their Zurich hockey team jerseys.  They got a lot of questions about those.

 On Friday they left for a few days in NYC on their way back to Zurich.  Before they left they had a fun game of "3d Tetris" trying to get the results of shopping into their suitcases.  It was a great week.

The weekend after they left we just pretty much crashed the entire weekend.  Andy did work on the cabinets.  He had purchased addition cabinets for the sunroom and needed to get those installed as the granite guy was scheduled to come out on Monday to measure.  It is hard to get an accurate measurement if all of the base cabinets aren't installed.  So, Andy had to get that done.  Then he got sick Saturday with a cold and was out off and on for a week and is still suffering from some lingering congestion and allergies.  Monica also had problems with congestion and allergies.  We're too old for the pace we had been keeping for a couple of months.  Oh well, it was all worth it and we're recovering.

Since this is a blog about our renovation, we should mention what has been happening with that.  Well, RHD is really finished with their part and it is Andy's turn.  So progress won't be quite as fast-paced which unfortunately does not necessarily make for an exciting blog.  Andy's first priority is to get the cabinets finished.  He did install the additional cabinets in the sunroom and is working on the cabinet shelves, drawers and doors.

These are the cabinets in the sunroom which will in essence be a dry bar, beverage center and coffee bar.  The appliance in the middle is a two zone beverage center with wine storage in the upper compartment and soft drink/beer storage in the bottom compartment.  The door for the cabinet on the left are not installed because of the 400 or so packages from IKEA, there was a mis-packaging of one of the doors for this unit.  So, Andy has to get that exchanged.  This will have the same black galaxy granite that the kitchen will have.. the kitchen is just to the right. 

This is the kitchen wall that is the same wall as the sunroom cabinets.  The cabinet on the far left is an 88 in tall pantry cabinet will pull out shelves.  Just to the left of that is the above sunroom cabinets separated by a wall partition.  Andy left the doors to the sink cabinet off as he has to remove the plumbing, the sink and the temporary counters before the granite is installed.  And then, of course, he has to reinstall the plumbing.

The fridge has two pull out pantry cabinets on each side and a normal above-fridge cabinet above.  Andy will add a trim panel between the fridge cabinet and the top of the fridge to give it that built-in look.

This is the cooking center.  There are a lot of drawers for cooking utensils. Our old kitchen had a severe lack of good storage.  There are four drawers on each side of the range.  The the two outer base cabinets each have two deep drawers and a smaller drawer.  Unfortunately our microwave is just a bit took big for the microwave cabinet on the left.  However it is a great space for the toaster oven.  The range hood is quite powerful with six speed settings going up to a whopping 900 cfm!  That should keep Anna from setting off the fire alarm when she cooks.  I think the old one really did suck any air at all.  Eventually all of the cabinets will have stainless steel colored toe kicks.

As a reminder, here is what the kitchen looked like before.

This is the kitchen before.  Andy is standing in the breakfast area as far back as he can.

This is the breakfast area looking from the kitchen.

Compare that to this picture of the entire new kitchen.

Andy took this picture from what used to be the patio.  The wall on the left was where the outside wall used to be.  The old sink, which was the end of the kitchen itself, was located just in from of where the new sink is located.  As you can see, this kitchen is just wee bit bigger.

Monica is so excited that the cabinets are nearly finished and she can start bringing things back from storage and organizing everything.  Of course, now there is a whole lot of new kitchen stuff to add... so she will make use of the additional space with no problem.

Next on Andy's to-do list is to install all of the handles which is his project for the weekend.

Since we lost the old patio area with the new addition, we really needed something to replace that.  In an earlier post we discussed taking out some badly overgrown bushes next to the house and adding more pool decking to that area.  Well, Andy finally had a bit of time to setup the new patio area.

From left to right.  A little table with two chairs are just outside the sunroom windows.  A great place for morning coffee.  Then the hangout area with an outside sofa and chairs.  Then finally is the grilling area.  It actually works out well.

Going forward, Andy only has evenings and weekends, the progress will be slow so we will probably post once a week unless something significant happens.