c9 | The Kitchen Is Done. Mostly.

...I think it's one of those things that just keeps going forever. Certainly feels like it.

We went from this:

to this:

This is what the kitchen looked like when we first moved in. Weird splatter paint deal on the walls, original 14-year-old cabinets ("European style kitchen" (!) ), unpainted stucco on the ceiling, and old appliances that worked but weren't pretty or anything.

Partway through our fall kitchen touchups. I've scraped the ceiling (mostly just making a mess), tried to paint the stucco (mostly just filling the roller with plaster bits), and we've covered the splatter pattern with "Drum Beat" (dark red) (except for where the green paint decided to turn blue and bleed through NINE layers).

Last month I found a new strategy for removing unpainted stucco, and attacked the ceiling, and it worked! Took a million years to flatten it afterwards though. Our straight friend was amused that our plastic sheets say "QUEEN" on them (they're mattress bags from our mattress purchase a couple years ago).

Look at that gleaming white ceiling! I see a dozen things I still want to fix, but it's better than it was. Mark, our cabinet-maker-turned-Actuary friend, helped us out immensely, and that's

leapfish on the right, working on the new wall colour.

He's an expert at this sort of thing, and took to it with great gusto. Those are wires sticking out of the wall next to him, but not live wires, lucky for him. We had to find an extension cord to hook up the fridge somewhere else, as the fridge is also on that circuit.

IKEA delivered the new kitchen in a somewhat unfinished state. (As it turns out, they sent us ~$230 too much of some things, and ~$100 not enough of other things! Crazy.)

Here's the cabinets gradually taking shape, though I forgot to take pictures along the way to this point. Say oooh and ahhh at our shiny new appliances while you're here.

We got so busy the next time I thought to take a picture, we already had the wall cabinets hung, the base cabinets placed, and the new countertop sitting in place too. The rule was no tools on the counter, and no tools behind cabinet doors. (good way to lose tools in the latter case, and good way to damage counters in the former)

Our new kitchen, from the wide-open window end. Yay for obvious photo manipulation and collage effects!

Our kitchen from the other end. Please ignore the (a) missing toekicks, (b) ugly linoleum floor that is not yet replaced (we'll have to wait for some credit card space to open up), and (c) paint cans waiting to be used in touch-up procedures.

Yay kitchen!