The Ship?!?

This month Mike & I were excited to head to the inaugural B1G championship game, or as I affectionately called the 'ship. May I direct you all to this clip as I assure you the 'ship is a legitimate term for 'Championship game.' And might I add, a heck of a lot easier to say!

Anyways, when Badger football season got started, there was a lot of talk about the Badgers making a real run for the NC game. So, being optimistic fans we were all set to book tickets to NOLA for Jan 9 2012. However, when they fell a tad short of that goal,  we settled for the 'ship. I am sure Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana is quite a different atmosphere, but we had an amazing time nonetheless. Here are a few pics from the weekend:

Panorama view of the stadium from our seats- I'd say there's an awful lot of RED in there!

We're goin to the 'ship!

Had to pose with the doctor at the tailgate

The band on their way to the stadium

Smiles on our faces getting ready to cheer on Bucky before kick-off

All smiles after we secured the win- which didn't happen until the final minute of the game!

Champions! and the games MVP- oh how we love you Russel!

We are the Champions! Posing in front of the blown up version of the trophy

With the win, they secured the second trip in a row to the Rose Bowl so all I can say is ON WISCONSIN!!

 This was definitely a great game against a great team and won one I'll remember for quite some time!


With the holidays and badger football, I must admit, the house projects have taken a crashing halt.
 I hope to be back later this week with a few more updates on our ikea trip (squeezed that in on the way home from the 'ship), our major black friday deal (part 1 got delivered last week!), and the lights we FINALLY hung up yesterday! Stay tuned...

A Klose to Klompeted Kitchen

It's official! We have gone from dinners like this:

pasta dishes from sugar river pizza

to this:

tacos cooking on the stove

The kitchen is completely functional and I am in love with the results! I know everyone wants to just see the pics so without further ado:

As you can see in the photos above, there is definitely some finishing touches we need to tackle, like the tv cord management, finishing the outlets, installing the baseboards, etc. But for now we are content to take our time with those.

Here are a few pics of some of the features we picked out, too:

Pull out garbage and recycling bins

Built in silverware tray....

... with a second level underneath for more storage!

Cookie sheets/cutting board dividers

A blurry shot of the lazy susan's in the corner cabinet

Spice shelves we have yet to fill...

We are also in some desperate need of some counter height stools. We spent most of Saturday evening and Sunday hunting for those ( 8 different stores in all!). I could not believe how much stools can cost. One store we went to had stools starting at $390 a piece! Crazy!! But I think we have in narrowed down to this one from world market:

They were all sold out when we were there yesterday but are supposed to be getting some in this Tues or next (cross your fingers it's this Tuesday). We are also planning on stopping at The Stool Store (very creative name I know) tomorrow on our way back to WM to hopefully pick up the above stool. The Stool Store is apparently quite special as it's closed on Sundays and has limited later hours (closes at 5pm most days...).

While out stool shopping, I finally found a piggy elephant bank I adore! I have secretly been searching for one for the past 2-3 years. We found it at Pier 1. He's such a cutie and right now is living in our pretty kitchen:

  So while there are still some things on the list before this kitchen can really be finished... it's definitely a step in the right direction!! Here are some pictures to remind you where we started...

When we bought the house

On demo day

On demo day

Although the kitchen is "kompleted" we have plenty more house projects to tackle and plan to keep you all updated on our progress. For now I'll leave you all with our "night" view of the kitchen:

Happy Monday!

Shrinking to do list

This week may mark the last week of kitchen chaos as we wrap things up. Although there's still quite a few things to check off the ol' to do list, I thought it was time we share a picture update with anyone who actually reads this thing.

Yesterday, the counter tops finally made an appearance. Mike was able to stay home and "supervise" the install so I did get picture updates throughout the morning. Let me say, I love the way they turned out! I think I may have pet them for a few minutes when I got home and saw them in person...

Sorry if the picture quality is poorer than usual. Mike forgot to take pics with the nice camera. These are from his cell phone.

Today, the tile guy came (as scheduled- yay!) and put up the backsplash. We went with a white subway tile for a pretty classic look, but had a little fun picking out an accent tile for behind the range. I immediately fell in love with the carrera marble in the tile and may have incorporated more of it, until I found out the price tag! Yikes! But it looks perfect in our little nook:

Here are a few more pics of the rest of the tile job:

Doesn't it look great?!?  I've already started putting stuff away (as of last night)- it's a fun puzzle figuring out where everything should "live."

I can't wait until plumbing and gas are completely hooked up so I can start using the kitchen again. Here's what's remaining on our agenda (and when it's supposed to be completed):

• Grout the tiles (tomorrow)
• Hang the hood (tomorrow)
• Hook up sink (Friday)
• Install faucet (Friday)
• Hook up dishwasher (Friday)
• Hook up range (Friday)
• Install toe-kick (Friday)
• Install crown molding (Friday)
• Hook up rest of electrical into box (Friday or Monday)
• Install baseboards (????)

In unrelated news, I'd been searching for a cute little garden stool to put out in our screened in porch for a table/extra seating for the past few months. As part of my birthday present, my mom contributed some $$ to help purchase one (those suckers are expensive!!) Well, I've finally found one and it got delivered today!! Yay! (not that it does much good on the screened in porch now, but it will be nice to have in 6 months when it starts to warm up again! Here she is, isn't she a beaut?

Hopefully I'll be back later this week with "finished" pics.

Let there be light

We've been trying to work on the lighting situation for awhile now. We've finally found can light covers for all of the different can lights we have and we've also found LED lights much to Mike's excitement. I can happily say I "installed" everything this morning and it's so nice to have all the lights up!

We also were finally able to get the under-cabinet lights installed. We ended up ordering Xenon lights from Amazon and were all ready to install them last weekend but they had accidentally shipped us 1 black and 1 silver light (we ordered all white) so we had to wait until this weekend to get 'er done. We did have a bit of a scare when we turned the power on and only 1 of the 3 sets worked, but it was a very simple fix and we're happy that everything worked out just fine!! Woohoo!

Notice Mike working on the island electric

Our last big project of the day was wiring the island electric. It took us about 20 minutes before we even built up the courage to cut a hole in our new cabinets, but we were able to do it without a hitch! Although it did require a trip to the depot for some last minute supplies (per our usual DIY routine).

Only 2 more days until the counter tops arrive! I'll be back later this week with more progress pics.

While we wait...

The counter tops are scheduled to be installed on Nov 8 so the kitchen will remain mostly un-usable until that point, but while we wait there is plenty to do. This weekend we worked on building something to raise our washer and dryer.

Our old laundry room did have a platform, but it was 24 inches tall and once the machines were on it, I couldn't really see the spot for the detergent without standing on tip toes... So after inspecting underneath it to make sure there wasn't a reason it was that tall, we took it down during the kitchen demo.

We came up with plans for what we wanted out of our laundry/mudroom and new dimensions for a platform for the w/d. We hope to not only raise the machines, but build doors to enclose them and add a ton of storage and function to this laundry/mud room.

Here are some of the pics we drew inspiration from:

Since the kitchen is our main entrance to the house, we want one side of the laundry room to function as a mud room to store coats, hats, gloves, shoes, etc. We plan on meshing the elements of these photos together... but more on down the road as it's not something we needed to get done right away.

The more pertinent inspiration pictures:

The w/d are all raised up in these photos with a ton of storage surrounding them. We knew we wanted to get at least the platform built before we brought them in from the porch. So that's what we worked on with our first Saturday off since football season started:

The new platform is about 15-16 inches tall and will have storage underneath it. These are some in progress shots. I forgot to take a picture of the "finished" product before we brought the w/d back in, but here's what it looks like all together:

We plan to put doors over the opening for some concealed storage and build cabinets for above and open shelving next to it. All of this can wait for now at least. We're just happy to be able to use our own w/d now! Although, we did get an error code when we plugged in our dryer today... we'll try again after it re-acclimates to warmer temperatures and hope that solves the issue... cross your fingers the kitchen/laundry remodel didn't just get more expensive...

One of our other minor projects today included pushing the fridge into it's permanent home. This project was a huge success!!!

The fridge looks so cozy now :)

We've also been trying to finish the lighting situation but this project has not been as successful. We have different can lights in the ceiling (some old ones, some new ones, and one weird one that got added after the ceiling was put up as mentioned in a previous post) so we are having a hard time finding the covers that work with all of the different types. I think we should just use "mis-matched" covers as you can barely tell a difference, Mike on the other hand KNOWS they are different and won't be happy until they match. So the hunt continues. We are also struggling to find LED lights that fit, but I think we may have found a winner. Pictures to come, hopefully later this week once things are finalized. Until then, enjoy the in progress shot of the kitchen...

**For those curious, pictures not of our house are courtesy of pinterest.com