It's beginning to look a lot like....a KITCHEN!!

I am so excited about this post.  This is the one room that has undergone the most change.. well, other than the walk in closet becoming a bedroom...

We started with a kitchen that looked like this the first time we saw it...

We actually had someone say out loud "why are you changing it?".. Well, for starters IT'S UGLY!! And then of course it was filthy and then nothing worked...not the oven, not the stove, not the dishwasher, not the microwave,  not the trash compactor and the sink wasn't even positioned under the window...so yea...now it looks like this...

opening the first box of cabinet...

ledger board to "rest" the upper cabinets

the directions say "start in the corner" so they did..

my fabulous brother-in-law who volunteered to use two days of his vacation to help..and then had to share his bed with the dog...

hubby left, BIL right.. cabinet number 2

yippee... microwave cabinet..

and that is the last upper on the right side of the kitchen..

lets' make sure it's level and straight and then have some lunch...

cause after lunch we start on the left side of the kitchen...this double cabinet is directly over the dishwasher and will be so nice to hold all the dishes we use on a daily basis..

and the last cabinet on the left side.

and so end the first day ...The sink base is installed, but the lower cabinet on the left is just sitting there for tomorrow and the drawer base to the right of sink is also just sitting there...  We all laid down and rested for awhile and then went out to dinner in town... I had a great hamburger, hubby had a rib eye and BIL had a rib eye sandwich...and a couple of beers...he deserved them.   Ok, for full disclosure I had one Bud-lite...and it was good..

 What did I do while they were installing cabinets?  I made lunch, handed them tools, got rid of all the big cardboard boxes. wired and put up light fixtures in one bedroom, two in a hallway, one in the entryway  and more..  BUT if you ask the hubby..he will say I played solitaire on my new iPad..lol

DAY 2 -

Hubby was up at 5:30am...old habits die hard.  BIL and I got up around 7am.. 

the drawer base is now installed, corner blind cabinet installed and now the last drawer base goes to the right..

this is where the stove will end up.  Lots of measuring and talking and leveling went on here.  They finally decided to put down some 1/2 inch plywood on the floor under the stove to get everything level...

nice butt shot hubby...lol  He bought a 6 ft level for this project and it really came in handy...this is the turn-around cabinet in the corner on the left side of the kitchen..

so now lets start on the other side.  They installed the turnaround cabinet and now are starting on the first base cabinet on what I call the island or bar as there won't be any upper cabinets over these...

and the second base cabinet on the island is done...

FINISHED!!

and FINISHED!!

If you ever install cabinets here are some little things you need to know...

 Leveling cabinets is very important.  You don't want your tomatoes rolling off the counter onto the new floor...

There was A LOT of leveling going on...moving a bit to the left, a bit to the right...adding shims...pulling shims...moving shims...oh...what's a shim?  

Let me introduce you to Bucket O'shims...

I think we used this whole bucket....

Shims are small flat pieces of wood that are shaped like a triangle with one end being smaller than the other...you shove them under or behind things to level them... I can't explain it any better than that..

Hint 2 - have a lot of band-aids...especially if you have a BIL like mine..  let's see..he hit head on the bottom of a cabinet, cut his hand on the back of a cabinet and did a great job of hitting his left little finger with the hammer and got blood EVERYWHERE!!   I think he used every band-aid I had (full disclosure means I need to say the box of band-aids wasn't a new box, but still!)..  He went home with 5 on his little finger and it was still bleeding through... I hope it stops hurting soon.. He will have a scar...probably a big one...

So Day 2 ended around 2:30pm.. Hubby and BIL got all of the BIL tools packed and toted out to his truck and he was on his way home...

We would like to publicly thank our BIL, otherwise known to the family as Uncle Don, for taking 2 vacation days and coming out to help.  We could not have done this without his help.  I can tote and carry as well as most, but I could not have held those cabinets in place on that ledger board or been as meticulous with measurements  as he is...which is a good thing when you are installing cabinets.  You need to be PERFECT and he was.  Thank You Don!

And then we installed the new lights over the bar area, packed up and came home.  Exhausted, but happy to have it all behind us.  Next up is getting final measurements for the counter top and getting that ordered and then finding a sink and faucet...

This weekend I will be painting and hubby will be installing the electric for the stove and microwave and starting to demo the hall bathroom..

Til next week....