remember this? good times, good times.

A few months ago, I asked you smart, intelligent, good looking people of the interwebz to help us in our kitchen cabinet hardware placement quest. And boy george did you come through. However, in all the in chaos of voting and comments, a more sinister subject emerged. The fact that our hardware was all wrong for our cabinets. A bad match. Like chocolate and rancid peanut butter. Or Hall and murderous Oates. Everyone who commented had valid points, and I always trust everything I read on the internet. So we returned the too-cuppy cup pulls. The knobs had to go, too.

We replaced them with these:

However, we did not follow the highest polling results from the internet voting. 64% of the vote said to place them at the top of the drawer fronts, while only 15% said to place them in the center. But at the time, the pulls we had would have been an uber-tight fit in the center, so I’m going to run on the theory that if we had these new pulls, the vote would have been different, and it would have been a landslide in favor of center placement. In fact, our exit polling showed this much was true.

I think these new, slimmer ones fit nicely in the center, and we’re very happy with the spacing. So I’m not holding another vote. Feel free to voice your dissent in the comments. I’ll forward them on to my Super PAC: Americans and Norwegians for a Faster Wrap Up of of this Remodel and More Respect For Rock Bands From Scandinavia.

Plus, G and I are no longer wildly pawing the drawer fronts open like badgers. Let’s give it up for good old American progress!

I originally ended this post with a celebratory Willy Moon dancing video, but G insisted it end with more Norwegian rock propaganda. So here you go. View if you dare, or if you are just curious to see what the Norwegian rock landscape was in the late 80s. This is what G listened to as a child, and it’s now the sound that fills this house, day in and day out. Send help.

I said I’d show you the upstairs master bath and closet, but right now there are more pressing issues at hand, even more pressing than children fighting each other to the death. I just finished painting the living room, dining room, kitchen and pantry.

How do you people out there choose paint colors? I tried getting a bunch of paint chips and dropping them in the grass outside and having them all fight each other to the death, until one color remained and was the victor, but that didn’t work. They just sat there, not fighting each other to the death. Confused, I reverted back to our tried-and-not-true-patented-technique, which I call Color You May Or May Not Be Happy With But Dammit You Can Finish And Get Back To Finding Out What Happens When Children Fight Each Other To The Death.

Here’s our technique: There is no color vetting process. We don’t test paint chips. We don’t paint small patches and see how shades will look on the wall at different times of the day. We don’t watch David Bromstad or the movie Colors. Yes maybe we should do these things. But we don’t. We gamble on paint. Buy a gallon, kiss the lid, shake the can and throw it up there. Which is kinda crazy considering we’re obsessed when it comes to finding just the right color when staining wood.

This paint gambling technique began years ago with what was known as the “That’s Not Barn Door Red, It’s Carrie’s Prom Bucket O’Pig Blood Red” incident, followed by the “My Driver’s License Says Over 21 But My Kitchen Walls Suggest I Play With Care Bears” fiasco. Then suddenly, as if Bob Ross himself waved his magic paint brush across the sky, we met a neighbor who was an interior designer, who helped us choose the colors for the entry and upstairs rooms. But now he’s moved away, so we’re left to our own questionable devices.

We’ve had this awful blue in the living and dining rooms for over a year now. We liked it for about 5 minutes, then decided it was the shade of despair and pity.

So we decided to paint over it – but with what? We had much much love for the Benjamin Moore Woodstock Tan in our entry, so we decided to play the odds and use it through the rest of the floor. Besides, it’s all kind of one giant room now anyway.

bye bye pity blue

The verdict? We love it. It’s absolutely changed our whole perspective on the house. It’s recharged our batteries. The wood wainscoting we installed and stained looks great with it and it’s all warm and cozy and craftsman-y. It’s like when that girl in that movie got that makeover and then all those great amazing things happened to her because she was beautiful but then she realized that superficial things aren’t really what they’re cracked up to be and that true beauty lies inside herself but then in the end she still stays hot and gets the guy so it’s ‘lesson learned,’ Hollywood-style. God, that’s such a good movie.

Still relying on my phone to take pics, unfortunately, so the color doesn't relay perfectly here, but I assure you it looks great.

Now, on the other hand, we risked bigger odds with the kitchen and pantry. We were thinking of just continuing the Woodstock Tan, but then I’ve been panicky about wanting a light, bright kitchen (not a Lite Brite kitchen – but how cool would that be?) and so we decided to pick another color. We chose it from the same Benjamin Moore paint swatch that 2 other colors in our house are on – Woodstock tan, and Briar’s Gold (which is in the staircase and upstairs mini hall/landing). The color we chose was Pittsfield Buff.

What do you think? (Still need to stain the door & window trim in here and do base & crown moulding. Plus - sneak peek: G's island project!)

A look into the pantry...

I kind of think the color is the pits. G loves it; I think it’s skewing a tad too yellow for my taste. It’s not terrible enough for me to want to change it – I just wish it was lighter and brighter. But dems da breaks when you play the odds.

So here’s what G and I did on our blog vacation, PART ONE – The Downstairs Rooms, a.k.a. A & G on Rooms, a.k.a. We Did Stuff You Look Now

The Kitchen

This is the kitchen. I made a bold statement before Thanksgiving that we would host it and then 2 weeks out I abruptly cancelled because we were in no shape to handle it. Mainly because we don’t have a table or chairs. And I find that people like to eat large meals while sitting down. But also I cancelled because the majority of my family members have not been to our house in a long time because of renovations. And at this point I’d rather have them come over when the house is really truly done. Or doneish. I am campaigning on the promise that that day will be in January 2012. And while this kitchen may not look any different than it did 4 weeks ago, I assure you that work has been done. Glass has been ordered for the upper cabinet doors. (New) hardware has been purchased and it has arrived, we just need to install it. The island cabinetry has been assembled. Here’s what’s left to do: we need to paint the walls, stain the trim, add crown moulding, buy and install lighting, install the island, and make/stain/install the hardwood countertop for the island.

The Pantry

Have I talked about this room? A mouse used to live here years ago which terrorized me so much that I slept in one of our offices upstairs and only communicated to G through crayon-written notes slipped under the door. But let’s not dwell on dark days. The problem with this room now is, it’s an awkward L-shape and I just can’t get a picture of it to do it justice. I need to shoot it like a hip hop video with a fisheye lens or something. But G assembled the cabinets, and we just primed and painted them this past weekend (Benjamin Moore Impervo in Navajo White). Plumbing is ready to go for a small sink. Here’s what’s left to do: adjust the doors, figure out what to do for a countertop, get the sink, paint the walls (I think we’ll do the same color as the kitchen, but maybe not? Unsure.) We’re also going to make a narrowish framed chalkboard thingy in this room but I’ll get into that later. Or not. If I had a God Complex it would already be done and I’d be telling you how thankful you should be that this house has been rescued by me and my chalkboard skills. My gosh, thankfully I got here just in time to install that chalkboard. Lord only knows what would have happened without my idea for a chalkboard. Death and destruction, surely. Pause. Look into camera thoughtfully.

The Downstairs Bathroom

I really need to stop using my phone as a camera. The commercial lies.

We reused the same sink we used to have in this bathroom. Is It a House Yet? Trivia: this sink is originally from an old house G’s dad used to live in forever ago.

The new tile I think I showed you a few months ago. May I tell you what a nightmare this tile was? I thought I was getting a super secret deal on overstock.com. I think we’re supposed to say “the O.co” now. So I think I’m all savvy on the O.co with a great deal and then it turns out the black flowers were not centered in the sheets. At all. This wasn’t realized until it was too late and the lines were way off. Anyway, G installed the toilet, sink, and trim. I painted. We still need to put on outlet covers, get/install and paint crown moulding, and we need to make a mirror/frame, which G just bought the wood for. We bought a couple of mirrors at Lowes a few weeks ago and are making a frame for this room and the master bath.

This bathroom originally was going to have a shower, but there was no room, so we’re turning the space into a cleaning supply closet. There will be shelving and a door, but this is super low on the priority list.

(spot the informercial buy)

There you have it kids. Hopefully I’ll post part 2 – the upstairs rooms: Master Bathroom and Master Closet, before the year is over.

All my yapping about kitchen cabinet staining, cabinet hanging, cabinet yadda yadda yadda. Weeks of it. Months. And what have we done? WE’VE ORDERED MORE CABINETS. I think we have some unspoken agreement to have cabinets in every room. In every color. For every use. Would you like a cocktail dear guest? Drink it out of this cabinet while sitting on this cabinet as we discuss Cabinet members Clinton and Geithner. Cabinet fever. Catch it. In fact, don’t even read this paragraph, as only those with extreme cases of Cabinetitis would dare make that White House Cabinet joke. I implore you. Cabinets.

G has already assembled most of them. These new cabinets will be painted, not stained – HOORAY! No staining! But the Kill Room stays, as we’ll be using a paint gun and need a place to spray them. Besides, isn’t a Kill Room kinda charming to have around? Like for overnight guests? “Steve and Rebecca, I’ll just put your things down in the Kill Room.”

Side effects of cabinetitis include annoying people as you talk about cabinets. Cabinets!

Here’s what we ordered the new cabinets for:

1. The pantry. We expanded the footprint of the old pantry slightly (see the floorplans here) to make room for food storage and counterspace that will include a small sink. My dream is to keep the coffee and tea out of sight/out of mind (I despise coffee messes – I think it’s because I don’t drink it? You wouldn’t either if you had the same orthodontist I had. But that’s a story for my other blog at coffeebreathandcabinets.tumblr.com ). Plus, of course, if the internet people are to be believed, when you spill a drop of coffee on the carrara marble countertops in the kitchen it may stain and the sirens will go off and the police will burst through the doors and fire extinguishers will rain from above and Kevin Costner will run in and grab you like you’re Ms. Houston in The Bodyguard.*

Have I told you about our cabinets?

2. The island. A.K.A. G & A’s isle of I’m right no I’m right

We ordered cabinets for a 42’’ island. G is going to build up panels and legs around it so it looks more like a piece of furniture, and we’ll paint it something I don’t know – greenish maybe? I also would like a stained old wood top here, but this is still being debated (durability, blah blah blah). There is also a debate between me and G about the existence of the island itself. I want it; G thinks the kitchen will get crowded with it in the center. Enter brilliant Norwegian/Brazilian brother-in-law B – with the idea to put the island on locking casters. It can hang out in the center, or roll to the side wall and out of the way. Brilliant.

*Full disclosure: I never saw The Bodyguard. But I’m pretty certain he carries her away in a rainy scene. Or she was just really sweaty? I mean, it’s Whitney.

Not an actual picture of G's family. Although the background does look a lot like the international terminal at O'Hare.

G’s family is coming in from Norway this week. So grab your lingonberries, boil all your food, and get caught up on everything the band a-ha has done since that video where they turn into cartoons. There’s work to be done:

1. CLEAN. This place is a disaster.

2. The kitchen cabinet pull situation. The voters have spoken. I’m ordering something else.

3. Master bath tub spout – I’ve only been talking about the kitchen, but the master bath is pretty much done. One of the last bits is the installation/soldering of the tub spout.

4. CLEAN. I think a family of beavers moved into the dining room.

5. Install master bath sink. G built a cabinet for an IKEA sink on Saturday. What started as a “blitz build” (just something quick to get the sink up and running) is now likely going to be the final product. Pictures soon.

6. Finish what I am now referring to as A’s Project Of ShameTM. Remember this? Pathetic story, right? WELL, FANCYPANTS, IT’S SO MUCH SADDER NOW. The tape is still up. A’s Project Of Shame went from Garth Books bad to Chris Gaines* bad. And I need to remedy it.

7. CLEAN. Before tv producers come snooping around looking for a show about do-it-yourselfers who live in dire conditions. “Dire DIYers”? It writes itself.

8. Practice my Norwegian. Here’s some helpful phrases you can remember the next time you are in Norway or are entertaining a Viking in your home. Please note that G isn’t here at the moment so I’m just using Google Translate for these, as all the Norwegian I know is “hi” (hei) “thanks” (takk) and the random swear word (what sounds like a series of umlats). I expect G to laugh at how wrong these are:

Hvordan går det?  How are you?

ønsker å farge noen trekabinetter?  Want to stain some wood cabinets?

Huset er en katastrofe.   The house is a disaster.

Dette er mitt prosjekt av skam.   This is my project of shame.

Det er bever i spisesalen.   There are beavers in the dining room.

Kan vi høre på noe annet enn a-ha?  Can we listen to something besides a-ha?

* My apololgies to fans of Garth Brooks and/or Chris Gains, although – really?

We chose these knobs and bin pulls in a finish the web site called “antique nickel.” G and I had originally gone back and forth on what finish to choose. For a while I was leaning towards oil rubbed bronze, and G was thinking something more in the silver family. We landed here. To be completely honest – I’m “eh” about them. I would have appreciated a bin pull that was more square shaped (we really hate curves, home-designally-speaking, and yes I’m pretty sure I read the word “designally” in Architectural Digest once before – but I’ll go more into this this anti-curves sentiment at a different time).

Back to the important task at hand. So we have these bin pulls. And we have the drawers where the bin pulls will live out their days as the only thing between us making a home cooked meal, and reaching into said drawer and grabbing a delivery menu. We were looking at where to position the pulls on the drawers, and figured the center of the drawer front was the logical choice. But then later I hop on Google and do a little image wandering for cabinets. And now I haz the confuses.

I saw this – with the pulls in the center of the drawers:

And then there was this, with the pulls at the top of the drawers:

And now I ask you – you fine, upstanding, confident, intelligent and good-looking people of the interwebs….

Should we put ‘em in the CENTER, like this:

Or at the TOP, like so?:

TALK TO ME, PEOPLE. THE FUTURE IS IN YOUR HANDS. DON’T LET OUR KITCHEN DOWN:

Side note: Is it “countertop”? Or “countertops”? Plate down on “it” or “them”? It seems like it should be singular because I’m not talking about multiple kitchens, but plural just feels right. I’m not sure which is correct, but I want you to know I’m very concerned about it, grammatically.

Also – you can see a bit of how the stained cabinets turned out. (We haven’t put on the hardware yet). The dude who was the ringleader of the installers insisted that G write down where we ordered our cabinets and exactly how we stained them. I thought that we should ask for a discount before we give away such information. Then I remembered this here world wide web thingy where I have already given away the milk for free. So it was moot. Moot, I say.

(our two slabs - hi slabs!)

But today was almost not to be. I told you how we had some issues finding a countertop we liked. But we finally decided that honed carrara marble was what we wanted. We were then immediately told the following facts from acquaintances, installers, and random people I stopped on the street:

It’s an awful choice!

It’s a wonderful choice!

It stains anytime you spill red wine on it.

As long as you seal it and cancel your Manson Club meetings, it won’t stain.

You have to seal it once a year.

You have to seal it every 15 minutes.

You can never put anything hot on it or it will burst into flames.

It’s the perfect surface for food prep.

It’s the perfect surface for baking.

If you bring a lemon within 1 mile of it you’ll etch the surface. They can just sense it.

Martha Stewart has marble countertops. She’s fancy and has good taste!

Pauly Shore has marble countertops. He was in Bio-Dome!

Marble kitchen countertops will add value to your kitchen.

In Italian, Carrara means “ugly countertops that are stained and etched and owned by people who regret the decision to buy them and they have a blog and document their regret for all to see.”

Marble countertops will make you happy.

Marble countertops may cause incontinence.

Marble countertops dated your mom.

Go for it!

You’re idiots if you do it!

So there you have it. Quite exciting. Pictures soon. I mean, I better take as many pictures as I can before we stain the hell out of ‘em, right?

stocked

We've been discussing what the first real home cooked meal in 11 months should be. Send recipes. And a cook.

Dishwasher & microwave. Or I hope so. We got tired after all the Oprahness and stopped opening.

*So our old freezer was on the fritz for about the last year or so. The defroster didn’t defrost, so ice would build up around the sides, causing the frozen food to get warm and soggy. How did we solve this problem without resorting to $repair$ or the purchase of a new fridge? HAIR DRYER. Set to high hot heat. You’d empty out the freezer, put down a bunch of towels under the fridge, get comfy, blow dry the freezer’s insides for about a half hour, melt all the ice, and everything would get cold again. Then a few months later, when the frozen veggies would start to get soggy, you knew it was time to schedule a blow dry appointment. I wrote a letter to the Hair Dryer Manufacturers of AmericaTM telling them they should add this selling point to their packaging: “makes a GREAT freezer defroster!” but I received no response.