Kitchen: Laying the Floor

Michael did a fantastic job laying the floor and helping me pick out tile and design the floor. I have to say it was mostly his idea to put the wood textured tile around the lighter tile, but it was a joint effort to come up with the final design. I took almost 36 total hours to lay, cut, and set the tile; and then another day to put in the grout and seal it. It was so worth it! (I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the floor after the grout was put in until after the base cabinets were installed so check out the completely finished floor in the next post.)

 

Kitchen

Dining Room

Pantry

Kitchen: Gutting and Cutting

On March 18th, Michael removed the kitchen cabinets and what was left of the floor. It only took about six hours to tear out all of the linoleum. I want to point out the nice raised ledge around our kitchen floor, also known as the cause of all of our kitchen damage. The house is not settling that much. The ledge was completely level, and the floor was completely level, just on different levels. For the record, if you leave a 1/2-inch difference between the footings and the kitchen floor it will cause problems with how the cabinets set over time and the wear of the linoleum, especially if you don't raise the entire cabinet to the level of the ledge it is sitting on.

 

After everything was removed, Michael took a grinder to the ledge and brought it down to the level of the rest of the floor. It took a total of four hours. Ugh! But we are so glad it was that easy and inexpensive to fix that part of the floor. A few grinder wheel versus cement board or actual cement to raise all of the floor to the level of the edge saved us several hundred of dollars.

 

Kitchen Before

I like to say "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." However, if something is broken I find myself wanting to fix it the best I can, even if that means starting from scratch and putting a lot of hours in to make sure the fix is done right. This year we decided to take on remodeling the kitchen. Not because I really wanted to, but with cracked and broken linoleum and the base counters having a one inch gap between them and wall I had had enough. So here are the before pictures (though I did manage to miss taking a picture of our cracked linoleum before Michael started tearing the floor out.)

 

Doing Sister's Hair

My kiddos are siblings. They like to fight. Occasionally, I see into this window of how much they really do love each other. Then they go back to fighting. But, they really do love each other. Here is Benjamin brushing Bekah's hair after a bath one day just because he wanted to help her.

Family Pictures

Family Pictures: Michael & Charlynn

Family Pictures: Kiddos

Family Pictures: Ryan

Family Pictures: Benjamin

Family Pictures: Bekah

 

 

 

Playing with My New Camera

On Saturdays when Daddy took the two older ones skiing, Ryan and I would go on adventures of our own to exciting and exhotic places like the dinosaur museum and farm country. On one trip, I was able to test out my new camera that I purchased after months of saving.