Day 52

C-Day. Morning came bright and warm. I was neither after spending the night in apprehension over the coming cabinets. Jovan and Sergio were right on time and started getting ready. DeeDee had to work (normally a day off) so I had to do this solo. The cabinets were set to arrive between 8:30 and 9:30 so we hunkered down in our trench and waited.

Not really. Actually, I had a conference call at 9:00 about a production in Texas at the end of the month. So naturally the truck pulls up right on time at 9:15. With multitasking skills honed by years of pretending to pay attention to people (and prodigious use of the 'mute' button), I oversaw the unloading of many, many crates, gave some orders, wrote some checks and still kept an ear open for what will happen in Austin.

Lord, did we get some cabinets! The boxes filled the dining room and took over every unoccupied space available. It took the guys the whole day to get the upper cabinets up and set up the pantry. After nearly two months living out of one box of dishes, its shocking to think of what we're going to put in all of these. In fact, we are considering taking one down as it hangs over the sink area more than we might like. I'll talk to the team tomorrow to see what a headache that might be. However, like hard drive space, I'm hesitant to give up storage.

Outside of a couple concerns (and one apparently missing cabinet), everything went up nicely and I hope to report a happy finish to the cabinet chapter soon. Then, its on to counters.

I notice that things seemed to get less messy and more expensive as we go, maybe that's because they figure its too late to turn back.

Day 13

Let there be walls. If you ever have trouble getting started in the morning here's one plan: Give a bunch of veritable strangers keys to your house and have them show up with power tools at 8am every day. I don't know about others, but I am up and about by 7:00 every day now.

Today was no exception. DeeDee's sister is coming so we needed to do some last minute touch-ups and move out of the living room so that they could take over our living room master suite. This included buying a bed frame, as I indavertently threw the old one out, not knowing how easily it could be repaired or how much it costs to replace. I am a one-man stimulus package these days.

Jovan wanted to put a coat of varnish on the new closet floor so we did not move before Michelle and the kids came. We went to brunch, toured Wrigley Field and even visited a cabinet store with the kids (boys love granite!). Later in the afternoon we wnt to see 'Alice in Wonderland' and did not do much kitchen-y stuff at all.

In the evening we went our for Ethiopian food. The boys are like 9 and 12 and I don't think Ethiopian food is in there 'comfort zone' but everyone survived.

At home, the guys had hung drywall in the kitchen and turned it into a real room. However, that room has slightly different dimensions than the were expecting, so there might be slight revisions to the cabinet plan. Maybe stalling wasn't such a bad idea after all.

The bedroom is done and varnished but stinks like industrial solvent. So The kids and Michelle are stasying at a friends, and we spend another night in the living room. Tomorrow should be a day of rest for the crew and a museum scramble for Deedles, me and the family. And probaly some more 'normal' food.

Day 12

Ups and downs. With heads still spinning over cabinet decisions, we went back to it. The guys were putting finishing (literally, varnishing) touches on the bedroom and insulating the kitchen in preparation for framing. I spent another day chasing the guy down about door pricing and doing a little of that 'day job' stuff.

When Dee Dee got home from work, we made our daily observations at the altar of home improvement, Lowes. Our designer was not around (apparently over-time is seriuously frowned on by Lowes and she was close to her 40 hours) but we did a comfort-level check of cabinets in question. One of the most anoying lessons I have learned in life is that quality costs money, and you can feel the difference in our top cabinet contenders. So I slide one step closer to custom cabinets.

We then explored the world of under-cabinet lighting (Xenon yeah! Hockey pucks no!) and stumbled home in rush hour traffics. We then spent the evening cleaning , as DeeDee's sister amd two boys are coming to visit tomorrow. What a lovely time for guests.