Spice Up My Kitchen

We made our bi-monthly trip to SA last weekend and things are on the upswing! Kenny went down the week before and got a LOT of work done. It was all the tedious, hard stuff that we can't help do. He was able to move and build in the new double oven. As a side note, this oven is also a convection oven and can also proof bread. That's a fancy way to say that it can make your bread rise faster. If you know what I'm talking about then you know how exciting this is and if you don't know know, well, trust me, it's great! Another thing that is incredibly awesome is the touch screen. No buttons or dials at all, just a touch sensitive flat screen, like an iPhone, so you can turn it on with your nose! Try turning on the oven with your hands full or with a baby in you arms and you'll understand why Meg was so happy about this crazy feature. A nose touch function is not something that you look for when you are buying an oven, but a fun bonus.

Back to the kitchen progress. Kenny also ran a water line to the range top for a pot filler and ran a gas line to the range top ( the previous was electric). He put the finishing touches on the concrete counters reinforced the cabinets. He tore out the old Sheetrock from behind the counters and replaced it, too.

When we got there, Meg and I couldn't do much because he hadn't gotten the countertops in yet, so we made ourselves useful by making numerous runs to Lowe's. When he got the counters, sink and range top in, we started tiling. It about killed me. I've tiled floors before but tiling vertically, under cabinets, is much more difficult. I had to lift up those sheets of tile over my head and then shift them around after they were stuck in the mastic or crawl under the cabinets into the corners. My weenie arms felt it for days! It looks so good, though. While we were tiling, he began the new wall behind and beside the fridge.

Doesn't it look great? We call it "cottage industrial". We added about 36 inches of counter length on the right side so that we could put in a wine fridge under it and build in a microwave above it.

I also started shifting gears from responsible Mamie to indulgent Mamie, since they will be moving soon and I won't have to follow rules anymore. I feel like I was cheated in that area. Because I saw him all the time, I couldn't just show up with toys and goodies. Also, more toys meant more clutter in MY house, not his. I did some extra makeup work while I was there. I bought him a fire truck and a swing set and we put those together, too. I think the remedial work will bring me up to speed in the spoiling department.