Kitchen Update

Well I am realizing how big and wonderful my kitchen is going to be.
We purchased a few more cabinets. The base cabinets on either side of the stove, along with 1 across from the stove.
The cabinet to the left of the stove is a large pull-out with trash and recycling. The cabinet to the right is the spice drawer I have always wanted, meaning all my spices actually fit in it. Along with the plastic bag and foils drawer and the bottom drawer is pots and pans.
Across from the stove is another 3 drawer cabinet. Housing silverware, leftovers glassware, bowls and pans. There will be 3 more of these where the table is for a total of 4. I will have so much space. I keep moving everything around to happy new locations.

Cabinets left to buy:
30" above - left of fridge
Over fridge cabinet
24" above to the right of stove
15" Pantry
24" Pantry
3-30" 3 drawer bases.
2 overhead lift open cabinets-optional

Brad installed 5/8" plywood on top of all the base cabinets. Which I immediately covered with white vinyl. So it feels cleaner. Since we will probably be living with no countertops for a long time.

I am just loving all the room.
Ginger has a new stool too. Which she loves since she is a natural cook. She helped make Ginger Mahi Mahi with me last night.

Brad installed a new metal door that goes from the kitchen to the garage. I immediately decided it needed to be painted chalkboard for notes, grocery lists and doodles...

I painted it last night I will get a photo up soon.

Brad goes under

Well it had to happen...
Brad had to go under the house to pull the all new electrical wires and bring them over to the new power panel so we could have power to all the new outlets and lights that we installed in the kitchen and dining.
So we dressed, wrapped and taped in up and sent him under the house.

Kitchen Update

Well we have added a few more cabinets to our ever-changing kitchen. The original plan was to have to lazy susan on either side of the kitchen sink with corner cabinets above. Then when we did the math on the actual lazy susan cabinet sizes and the actual room we discovered we were an inch over. So then we got to re-figuring and we thought we would do a different configuration. Then we actually bought the lazy susan cabinet and put it into place and we realized that it would be fairly simple to modify another one to fit in the other corner spot. So we played musical cabinets and went back to our original configuration. Which made me very happy because I think it is the best use of the space.

Brad was able to modify the bottom right lazy susan cabinet without too much headache is was a bit of a hair puller, but he did it and it looks great. So what we have now is basically a mini kitchen. I can't wait to get the other cabinets in place and get all the new outlets lit up so we can take advantage of all the new space. I pretty much have all my kitchen goodies out of boxes and in either this kitchen or the back kitchen. Which is wonderful to have access to all my gadgets, pots, pans, and serving dishes.

Our next big item on the list is to get all the new power moved from the coil under the kitchen floor to the new panel. This means Brad has to climb under the house and take the coiled wire from under the kitchen to under the far living room wall.
But going under the house is never a great job.

Once that is run and hooked up then we will be able to power up our new kitchen lights and outlets. Then we can move the microwave to the front of the house. Right now we still run to the back of the house to Nuke something. I also have found that using the stove for heating things up isn't so bad with a gas stove. So I use the microwave pretty minimal.

Power Panel - Supersized

Well it is official our new power panel has been installed by JM Electric. The new power panel went up a few weeks ago then we had to get the City of Oceanside out to release the new panel to SDGE. Once the City inspector came by and gave us the go ahead then we had to shut the power off and have SDGE come out. SDGE changed the glass component to the new panel and put a plastic glass cover on the old component. They also changed the lines to a new mast that is on the roof. Where the power comes into the house. Then they powered us back up. Then the City Inspector came out and gave us our final inspection on the new panel so we are good to go.
The old panel was ridiculously undersized compared to day's standards. I called it the Barbie Panel.

Tropical exterior color scheme

Well, the weather has been fabulous these past few weeks. So I got antsy and decided to paint the whole front of the house myself. I did get some help from my oldest son Nolan one of the days. And my daughter helped a bit too.
I still have lots of work to do. But here are a few progress shots.

My inspiration for the color scheme are the colors in these colorful banana trees. Like this one.

New Window Trim

Well since we have 2 new kitchen windows we had to get creative with trim around the new windows. Previously, we had shutters around the window and some funky angled wood pieces. Since our new windows are smaller. We had to cover up the siding that had be removed and filled in. So I came up with a more formal look. Now I am super anxious to paint the whole house. To clean up all the paint differences where the old shutters were.

I want to paint the main color of the exterior of the house a dark green with a lil green in it.

Here is one of the color combos I am liking right now.

Dirty Workshop

Here is our other greenhouse that we have converted into our dirty workspace.
All the natural light in here is just wonderful and I love the gravel floor.
Well it is great for making a mess on but is not so good for rolling a chair on, or when you drop a little piece on it.

With all this rain we have been getting this winter, we are discovering that moisture abounds out here. So we have decided to create a dry work space in the big greenhouse and we are going to use a lot of the scrap from the corner green house that we just tore down. Basically our plan is to create a dry room within the greenhouse that we can make watertight. It will have natural light but not have water that works it way in. We will also build a floor in this portion.




This is our recycle pile. It has grown from when this shot was taken.