Too Busy for Blogging

      I haven't posted in a while because we've been really busy lately... 

      My grandfather had been unwell and in the hospital since about Christmastime, but was doing increasingly poorly this week, so we took time to go and visit him. He passed away on Tuesday evening. 
      We were also all sick again this past weekend/ last week, which left us incapacitated for a day.
      And amongst all that we've been trying to redo our kitchen, which has been no pleasant task. Josh took Monday - Wednesday off this week to tear out the old kitchen:

      It took him most of two days just to tear up the floor because the subfloor was stapled in approximately a million places and would just crumble every time he tried to pry it up. 

A very messy job indeed. 

Goodbye, ugly 80's vinyl!

     He was able to take out the base cabinets by himself fairly easily, but even with my help the upper cabinets were tricky, so we had to recruit our neighbour's help to get them off. Living without a sink has been interesting.

      We had the electrician here for most of the day yesterday to re-wire our kitchen lights/ switches, get the dishwasher hook-up ready, and set up another outlet for a microwave range hood. 

Then there was lots of drywall patching, priming, and painting to do last night.

See, I helped! :)

     I had been struggling to choose a colour scheme for the kitchen because I wanted to use wallpaper for an accent wall behind the table, but couldn't find one that I liked (and hence couldn't choose a complementary paint colour). Then, I accidentally happened to go down the in-stock wallpaper aisle at Home Depot the other day, and found one that I really loved! I hadn't thought of checking the in-stock wallpaper! So, we chose a khaki-ish paint colour that goes with the wallpaper, as well as the rest of the main floor of our house. 

(Note our pretty new pot light above the sink!)

      We wanted to get the paint on the walls before the cabinets were installed so it wouldn't be so hard to paint around them. We still need to paint the bulkhead, and the other half of the kitchen not pictured here, which is too full of stuff to be able to get at right now. 

     I have the Mommy Guilt because Laura's been babysat by Sesame Street a lot the last few days. :S But, last night, while we were waiting for paint to dry, we took some much needed family time together and watched The Wedding Singer (which Josh was unreasonably excited about).

     The cabinet installer is here today and this is what my kitchen looks like:

And this is what my basement looks like: 

And this is only about half of it! The guest room is full of kitchen refuse too.

     We've been working from the time we get up in the morning until we go to bed trying to get things done, so it's been exhausting. I'm sure it will all be worth it in the end, though. :)