Remodeling The Kitchen Week 16 - Installing Cabinets

The arrival of our cabinets was heralded by a Deputy Sheriff arriving at our doorstep. The dog being the smallest and able to squeeze through the many piles of boxes to make it to the door first, and greeted our visitor with a tirade of barking. When the rest of caught up, we just stared out at him for a moment like that split second when the headlights fall on a critter attempting to cross the road as we tried to figure out why he could possibly be here. Did the neighbors finally make good on their threat (our craziness is quite famous- according to them things like keeping chickens isn't done in "polite" company)?

We quickly informed the very nice officer that we hadn't dialed 9-1-1, everything was indeed ok and no we didn't know where our phone was. After he was well assured that no tom-foolery (except Brianna yelling she didn't do it- me thinks someone has a guilty conscience) was about, he bumped back down the driveway (Sorry!) and we were left with our boxes. Apparently, someone had called and hung up from outside our house (come on people! We've all heard those annoying commercials, don't hang up when you've dialed 911).

Faith discovered that our new cabinets make a great obstacle course for border collies and is running over, under, around and when possible through. The neighbors probably think someone was being murdered with all of the barking and loud noise echoing from our house. Oh well something to brighten their day- if they're going to talk about us they might as well have something to discuss.

Living in a house that is a current construction zone / storage room / assembly area is much like living in a room with all of the puzzle pieces that went missing. Lots of there you are, but nothing fits. It makes for some very interesting games, like how to do laundry when you can't get back and forth, or how to do dishes when there is no where to dry them or sit them while your washing- forget sweeping its pretty much impossible. To top it all off we had our first freeze last night, so all plants that we wanted to survive the winter had to come in. How we still have room to walk around is beyond me.

Putting together cabinets and then installing them takes teamwork, lots and lots of teamwork- and at some point smashing of fingers, pinching of necks, backs, arms and digets, cutting of skin and getting splinters becomes less of a worry compared to dinging paint jobs. It's amazing how priorities change. You learn to be ok with resting a gigantic cabinet on your head/back while someone looks for the drill and screws that have gone missing for the thousandth time.

See, it's the greatest exercise in teamwork!

-And fitting into tight places while pushing your limbs into odd positions that they've never been in or should be in, we may make it in the circus after all of this.

So anyway cabinets- you should know one thing, our house isn't exactly straight or even however you want to put that. Which is one of the many reasons we were hesitant to put in tile. So everything has to be adjusted over and over. Get one screw in and check to make sure its level, then put the next one, check again, then the last one. The words "oops", "is it supposed to look like that?", "uh-oh", and anything else that could possibly fall in this category have been banned from the house.

We have all but three of the upper cabinets installed and we can now partially walk through the living room. It's been quite the undertaking, lots of "Oh my gosh, I need to sweep!" moments, and lots of hiding in the pantry moments (we finally have the door on!) while hugging a mug of apple cider and whimpering (think Rapunzel in Tangled when she ventures outside her tower) that we never should have tried this.

So with muscles screaming in protest I bid you adieu, until next time- the dog is demanding a walk. Seriously we created a monster taking her on our last hike. Mr. Cottage took Monday off so we will hopefully be doing some counter top shopping, yeah we still have't ordered those. "I'm coming!"

New to our story check out weeks 1,2,3,4,6,7,13,14 & 15