I can't blog fast enough: Ceiling fans, floor sanding, kitchen cabinets ...

Walt's been working hard (and the home folks haven't been slacking either), so lots of progress is being made! Somehow I just haven't made it to the computer to keep you all updated.

And I don't have a whole lot of time now, either, but here are some photos of the progress!

Kitchen cabinets are nearly all in place! Just doors, drawers and countertops to go (they aren't yet in place in the photo above.

Here's the faucet that's going to go in!

And, after much drama, we found a sink that will work. Here's a photo from the Swanstone website:

Here's the long-story-short: I designed the kitchen on IKEA's design program. When the 36-inch sink base didn't fit, I pulled it out and put in a 30-inch one -- I saw that IKEA had sinks that looked big enough that fit that base, so I didn't figure it would be too hard to find one to fit.

Well, it was -- since I was looking for a double-basin sink. IKEA had pretty much the only ones, and they were actually 1 1/2 basin size. And I didn't care for them all that much -- not a whole lot of style, and the shape didn't seem to make the best use of space. (Surprisingly, for IKEA.) So I was looking for a white cast-iron sink, since that would best showcase the kind of faucet I wanted, and when it looked like the only white cast-iron sinks that would fit had only three holes at the top, meaning I'd have to give up the spray nozzle, we looked at other options. Walt was with me at Menard's, and we were seriously considering getting a double-basin sink and cutting out some of the side of the sink base to make it work, but in the end, that didn't seem like the best option -- that would take up a lot of the time that Walt is still here, and it would make the silverware drawers narrower than they would be otherwise, and the sink would be slightly off-center. So, we ended up with the white granite sink above, which is white (the better to show off my faucet, which I'd already bought by that point), stylish, and big for a single-basin sink -- it's 9 inches deep, and the arch at the top gives a little more room for big pots. It only has one hole now, but the directions say that additional holes can be cut with a 1 1/4-inch bit. (It's not solid granite -- part quartz, I think.) The only drawback is it's a special order, so we're really hoping it gets here so Walt can help install it!

Here's three days of my life: I sanded the upstairs floors with a belt sander and a palm sander. (A larger sander would have been big to lug up the stairs, and would have involved more work with pounding down nails.) I still need to vacuum and mop it, but the dirty work is done.

This light is a real accomplishment! Dave was having trouble with a circuit, which was not working correctly, and malfunctioning in a way that no one could figure out. Dave eventually did, though -- it was a loose neutral, whatever that means. All I know is, it now means we have functioning lights and outlets in all rooms in the house!

Here's a bad photo of the bathroom floor, all rolled up and in plastic. I researched more environmentally friendly floor options for a wet space and didn't find a compelling option, so vinyl it is. At least it has the advantage of being easy to install -- no glue required.


And the IKEA floor is going in! Walt started work on that today. I was able to get out to help him for about an hour, when Erik was sleeping (Sofia was at daycare, where the kids have started going on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, but Erik is coming down with a cold, so he stayed home).

Erik went straight for the hammer when we went out to look at progress in the afternoon.

The box that the flooring came in was also a good toy.


Here's one of the lovely lights above the dining room. I'm especially pleased with these!

And the ceiling fan is in! It really makes a difference on hot days. Hopefully it will work as well in the winter and keep some of the hot air downstairs! We went with white, thinking it would be cloudlike up there, in the prairie sky above the prairie grass artwork on the walls. In my mind's eye, while in Menard's, I forgot about the black stovepipe. If I'd have thought more about that, I would have gotten a darker fan. Oh, well.

I'm in a quandary about the lighting fixture that should go in that spot above. Should it be big? Diminutive? Hanging? A similar style as the dining room lights? Feel free to give your opinions!

Paint!

The house is nearly painted! We've only got three little corners to go -- one wall in a bedroom and the downstairs linen closet (both because we ran out of paint) and one wall in the upstairs hallway (because we had so little paint we needed a different kind of roller so we wouldn't run out).

So here, without further ado, are the rooms in their newly painted glory:

Here's the downstairs bedroom, in "Evening Hush" blue, with the stripe of "Heavenly Blue" at the top. It's a little dark, but we'll have white curtains and a white bedspread. It will work.

The east wall in the downstairs bedroom is "Soft Suede."

The living room, dining room and kitchen (which are really all one room) are all in "Soft Suede."


... Well, that is, with the exception of one wall in the kitchen, which is a vibrant "Chinese Porcelain" blue.

This little wall, dividing the kitchen and dining room, is "Soft Suede," which contrasts nicely with the "Heavenly Blue" of the high ceiling and walls.

Here's the view looking up. The color itself is fine, but what I really like is how it's going to look with the artwork that's going to be on the straight walls on either side -- it's silhouettes of prairie plants, in brown wall decals. (I'm still working on the design.)

Here's the west bedroom -- "Bahia Grass," "Soft Suede" and "Queen Anne's Lace." It's going to be the project room for a while, till either Sofi or Erik move up here. The colors aren't all that thrilling for that, but we'll decorate with some red, and I think it will be nice.

There's a little more of that "Chinese Porcelain" color in the upstairs hallway, though you won't see much of it -- we're planning on having bookshelves running most of the length of the hallway.


Here's the Swedish room, also known as the "Tribute to IKEA" room. OK, I love IKEA, but that's not really why I went with these colors -- I had both of these colors left, and I think they look nice together. I like the striping, but if it gets to be a bit too much (if we start feeling like we're in a Swedish jail) I'll continue the blue paint around the bottom third of the wall.

Here's the other wall! It's so bright, no one is going to oversleep in here!


Here's a nice view of the striping from the hallway.


And we must give credit to Walt for all of this getting done as quickly as it did -- he not only knows the tricks for getting the paint to look good, he was willing to clamber up and do the high ceiling. (We decided not to post this picture until we were all done with this, so Karen wouldn't worry.) And he made it seem like it was no big deal. Phew! A lot of worry off our shoulders!

So, what's next? Well, cleaning! I'm really excited to get all the drywall dust up, not only because we can then move on to other projects, but because it means I can put Erik down to walk in the new house sometimes, which he desperately wants to do.

On the immediate horizon are floors and kitchen cabinets.

Please, share comments on paint colors! Even if it's to make bad jokes about the Swedish jail. (That's going to be the guest room for the immediate future, by the way.)

A good time to invest in IKEA

The title was Dave's idea, and it's pretty appropriate, considering we've sent several paychecks directly to IKEA headquarters in the past two weeks.

First, we we went to the Cities on the first weekend in August to get our IKEA kitchen. I finished my design that morning (IKEA has a slick kitchen design program that took out a lot of the guesswork) and uploaded it to their site. Here's what I came up with!

The one thing to notice here: The sink is not below the window, since I want the sink to be below a Finnish-style drying cupboard. That's one thing we'll still have to work out -- I've got to see if I can find such shelves here, or if I'll have to special order something from Finland. Surely I'll be able to find something that works.

Then we headed to the store, and after a few last-minute decisions (such as countertop color) and a lunch of meatballs, we purchased our kitchen cabinets! With only one small glitch, in that our credit card had been canceled between the lunch of meatballs and the attempt to purchase kitchen cabinets. I called the credit card company, which said that the account had been closed because the number might have been compromised, as reported to the bank by someplace we had used the card. They reopened the account for a few days so we could make our cabinet purchase. Wasn't that some timing, though? That's probably the biggest purchase we've ever put on a credit card, and the card was canceled right before it.

The van was LOADED for our return trip home. And you don't even want to know how five of us crammed into the van for the trip from IKEA to Don and Mary's.

We did some other things besides shop that weekend:

Sofia enjoyed the butterfly garden at the Como Zoo.

And Erik and Sofia both enjoyed Uncle Michael's old Nerf guns.

So that was the first trip to IKEA! But we just can't get enough of the place, so we went back for more -- though the "we" for the second trip changed to my sister and me. We planned a whirlwind trip to the Cities Wednesday through Friday last week. I had found some flooring I liked, and we had discussed Don and Mary bringing flooring to us when we met at the lake over the weekend, but in the end Mari and I decided that it was a now-or-never opportunity to get away before life got complicated by a number of things, including Mari's girls starting school.

Here's the flooring I picked out:It's got an "antique" look. Hopefully it will go well with the old wood we've already got in the new house!

Once again our vehicle was LOADED coming back from IKEA, but this time it was Mari's van. (She also bought a coffee table and a mirror, but for the most part the back was full of flooring.) And once again five people had to squeeze themselves amid IKEA merchandise for the ride from the store to Don and Mary's. And once again I had meatballs for lunch. Can't get enough of a good thing!

... There's much more going on in the house now, but I've got to get some sleep. Hopefully I can get a painting blog post up tomorrow, with photos!