Well, since this is the only place that isn't covered with dishes, pots, pans, laundry stuff and drywall dust, I decided to have my dinner on the steps tonight. Yes, that's right, you are seeing me eat Ben & Jerry's newest flavour, 'If I had a Million Flavours' for dinner. Beside me is my iphone and my cheque book (which I am spending a lot of time with these days with the reno and all that). 

Later Simon joined for a Romantic dinner of... more ice cream. I could get used to this reno thing!! 

Seriously though, today saw a little movement on the organization side of things. Kitchen and Bath Classics called and all of our stuff is ready to be picked up. We also spoke with Midland Appliances and they will be sending out someone to look at our dishdrawer as we've having a hard time shutting the top drawer and want thm to take a peek at it. No other news really. Oh, except, tomorrow night will be Cherry Garcia...

Ah the Sweet Sounds of the Burbs...

So after our exhausting day of ripping apart 1/2 of our main floor of the house, we fell into bed ready for a good nights' sleep. At about midnight we both woke up to the sounds of something horrible. It literally sounded like someone was being mauled to death my a lion. I actually thought it was videogame sound design taken way over the top! When I realized it wasn't i threw on my shoes and ran out the back. I couldn't see what it was over our fence but realized it was coming from the neighbour's backyard. At this point I though maybe they had got a pit bull or some kind of crazy dog. I grabbed a kitchen stool and took it outside. At this point the neighbour also came out of her house. She didn't know what it was either and it was so dark that neither of us could see anything. 

Once I got up on the stool I could see that it was two racoons! 

They were having an insane fight right there in her backyard. We quickly dispersed the buggers and went back to bed. Wildlife in the suburbs!!

The Demolition Begins!

We ripped out all of our cabinets, sink, countertop, baseboards and lino. We also pulled out the cabinet, sink, mirror and flooring out of the main floor bathroom. The laundry room also lost its lino today!!

To the left was the original kitchen. 

We started the day off with Simon going to Fontile to

 pick up our order of in-floor heating. After much research, we went with flextherm wire. While the nuheat matts are generally easier to install, they are about 1/3 more expensive. We were able to get everything that we needed to cover approx

 420 square feet (kitchen, bathroom & laundry room) for about $1625. For those of you that don't know costs for in-floor heating, that's a really good deal. Simon worked his magic on the

 salesperson and was able to get a 20% discount on the whole order!! Hurrah Simon!!

We had a plumber come to quote on the work that needs to be done. While he was here he cut the pipes in the kitchen so that we could knock the sink and garberator out later that morning. We watched him saw through the copper pipes and take everything apart. He placed all of his tools and towels under the sink while he was working. When he went to take some of the pipes outside, Simon decided it was the perfect time to clean the kitchen and dumpe

d his coffee into a sink without any pipes! All the plumber's stuff was covered with a latte! It was a great way to start the day (and the relationship with our new tradesperson!!) Needless to say,

 we mopped up all the coffee and it was groovy.

After then the reald fun began!!

Tommy showed up with his expertise and was instrumental in helping us. We started by pulling off all the doors and cutting all the electrical wires (to the garberator and the hood fan) to ensure we would be okay once we broke out the sledge hammer. 

Once this was done we started hammering away. It only took about three hours to pull all the cabinets down and lug everything up to the back

 gate. Ernie (our handyman extrordinaire) is going to take it all to the dump for us once he starts next week). Then we had to start pulling up the lino and getting rid of the wood veneer floor tiles in the bathroom. This was a BIG job. But necessary as we attempt to make the kitchen floor closer in level to the dining room. We ripped off the two layers of lino and we are now down to the plywood floorboards.

Right now our entire launrdry room, tv room, kitchen and bathroom are sitting in our dining room and living room. The dining room is filled with all our appliances. We've got a fisher&paykel french door fridge, their 36" inch 5 burner range and the rockin' dish drawer. It's going to look great!!

We can pick up all of our taps and sinks sometime next week, but I'm not keen to do so, as we don't have any more room. Ernie will start ripping out walls next week and the plumber will come back (without coffee this time!) and rough in the plumbing. We're moving the kitchen sink over three inches, along with the window to allow enough space for a lazy susan to be installed. The house is chock a block full, but it's never been more exciting!