Pete and I chat on and off throughout the day on Facebook or via text. Lately, though, are communications have taken on the distressed nonsensical ramblings of people stranded on an island. Except that we don't have the luxury of sand beaches or sunshine. Instead we're stuck in New Jersey in the winter. 

To illustrate my point, here's a snippet of our conversation from the other day:

PETE: I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am about light switches in the kitchen
KRISTEN: I've never wanted to do laundry so badly in my entire life
PETE: Right? What is this?
KRISTEN: I'm going to wash all of my underwear
PETE: Yes!
PETE: I'm going to watch them spin around and drink a beer
PETE: Me and Ernie ... just watching the spinning

Sexy, right? There's also drawn out discussions about skimming walls and -- my personal favorite -- antique door options. But, as you can imagine from yesterday's cabinet post, the next step in our kitchen process is the appliances. We are currently waiting for a few more cabinet pieces to arrive (including 12 feet of butcher block that we're making into counter tops) and finishing some minor plumbing and electrical work. I can not stress how done we are with waiting. So you can imagine our excitement when we finished the cabinets this weekend and were anxiously waiting (there's that word again) for the appliances to arrive Monday morning between 8:00AM and 12:00PM. Except instead of being our rescue boat off the island of kitchen insanity, the appliance people decided to test our mental fortitude.  

Here's the rundown:

• SUNDAY: Cabinet installation complete (for what we had on hand)
• MONDAY: Appliance delivery scheduled for AM > Delivery is a no-show > Finally arrive with ONLY the stove
• MONDAY NIGHT: Angry phone calls to appliance company > Promised a Tuesday morning complete delivery 
• TUESDAY MORNING: Waiting for appliances > Delivery is a no-show
• TUESDAY AFTERNOON: Angry phone calls to appliance company > Promised an evening delivery > Pete leaves work to go home and receive the delivery > Delivery is a no-show
• WEDNESDAY: Angry phone calls to appliance company > Promised a 7:30PM delivery > Delivery truck calls at 3:30PM that they are outside the house > Pete rushes home from work 
• WEDNESDAY NIGHT: We are now the proud owners of a refrigerator, dishwasher, stove, stove hood and washer/dryer!

This weekend we're finishing up the appliance installation and hopefully cutting up the one piece of 12' butcher block we have to make the sink counter top that runs along the back wall. While the boys discuss the best way to undermount a sink and cut holes (jigsaw? router?) I'm going to gather every piece of plaster-coated fabric in the house, grab a cold beer from our new refrigerator and sit in the newly sheetrocked laundry room and watch the spinning. Happy weekend, folks.

Someone once told me it's disturbing that I call my father "Big Poppa." People, don't be gross. My father is a large man who is also my poppa. And, it's not that I want to go drawing parallels between my father and the Notorious B.I.G., buuuuuuuuuut here are the facts:

1. Like Biggie, he enjoys a good party, throwing his hands in the air, and -- with three marriages under his belt -- he is a true player
2. Also like Biggie, he enjoys empowering women to make their own money, even if it is at the expense of dummies
3. And finally, like Biggie, he's seen a lot of ladies who he wanted to have his baby because, let's be real, I'm the oldest of five kids and he probably would have kept going if he hadn't gotten neutered when I was in my teens

So let's just leave it there. That said, Big Poppa came over on Sunday to help us install the kitchen cabinets. I know you must be thinking, "Whoa! Kitchen cabinets! High-five!" But not quite. It has been a NIGHTMARE getting cabinets. The beginning was easy: we picked them out and ordered them. Now, you must be thinking, just wait for them to arrive, right? Wrong again. I won't name the company we're working with yet because they are still holding some of our cabinets hostage, but I have never been more frustrated dealing with any vendor in my entire life. And my day job is retail. I work with vendors for a living. From lying to losing information to downright being rude ... this company has taken the HR manual and set it on fire. In the beginning Pete and I were all understanding and patient but as the weeks went by we began to get suspicious that something was amiss. Let's just say that after many angry phone calls we finally received the first part of our order ... except that more than half of the items were damaged. Or missing parts. Or ordered completely incorrectly. 

But we persevered and tried to be positive. There WOULD be a kitchen in our future. And that kitchen would be filled with love and home-cooked meals and maybe a voodoo doll emblazoned with the cabinet company's logo. Who knows! The ideas were as endless as the cabinet company's excuses.

So when things were finally semi-sorted we called in our secret weapon. And this is where Big Poppa makes his appearance. I knew we were off to a strong start when he arrived in his favorite sweat pants (with pockets) and immediately told me he had eaten a corn muffin in the car but was still curious about what I planned to get for lunch. It was 9:30 AM. So, while I went to procure food, together Big Poppa and Pete made a plan and got to work putting together the pieces of our kitchen.

This Saturday we took a break from sweating over the renovation to dress up and go out to eat (there was real silverware and plates, guys!). It was a change from our normal Saturday night of collapsing on the couch and watching Storage Wars reruns.

And it wasn't just because we were feeling fancy. It was Pete's birthday! Back in the day when we first got the house we had lofty goals of cooking him a birthday dinner in our new kitchen. Since cooking is still a week or two away, we needed a Plan B. 

Enter: 15 Fox Place. I brought Pete to this little gem last year for his birthday and I'm a sucker for tradition. Set on a residential street in the Marion section of Jersey City, 15 Fox Place is a private dining establishment by reservation only. You sit in various locations inside a converted home that's still decorated with cherubs and family portraits and pink wallpaper and all the Italian-American wonders I fondly remember from my childhood when we visited my aunt in Belleville.

But that's just the backdrop. The real star? Hands down: the food. And there's a LOT of it. Approximately 16 to 18 different dishes ranging from polenta with meat sauce to hot peppers over sliced potatoes and cookie platters. I'm used to big family meals, but even I have to watch my portions at 15 Fox Place because it's almost too easy to over-indulge. 

After announcing our dinner plans there was only one surprise left for Pete: the gift. And after his "terrifying" design rant I knew I needed to get him his very own Addams Family inspired piece of taxidermy.

The story behind the bear is a fascinating one. The taxidermy came with a five-page written account of how in the mid-1990's this particular bear was terrorizing a small town in middle America. One day it chased two small girls while they were on the way to the bus stop. They escaped with their lives only because of an intervention by the family's dogs. The father, scared for his family's safety, called a neighbor for help. The neighbor loaded up his gun and went out looking for the bear. After searching and not finding anything but tracks he returned to his own barn to feed the livestock. Hearing a rustling outside the barn he went to investigate and was confronted with the bear in question who lunged at him in full attack mode. The neighbor had just enough time to raise his gun and shoot the bear before being eaten. Wounded, the bear retreated into the woods. The man followed and found the bear dead. He then proceeded to drag the bear home where he field dressed and carved up the meat. That night he had himself a few bear steaks. The next day, though, he brought the skin to a local taxidermist and had him mimic the attack pose that almost cost the neighbor his life. 

And that's the story of the bear that's now in our row house hallway.

As we count down the days until the weekend where we will (hopefully) attempt to install the kitchen cabinets I wanted to take a little stroll down memory lane. Here's a six week look at the kitchen floors, from tiled and roach infested to sanded antique heart pine:

Aaaaaaand, folks, it's starting to look like a kitchen again!

This week we're hauling ass to get the kitchen completed. Or at least assembled. Here's where we stand:

• FLOOR: Completed - We pulled up the old tile and cement board the first week in the house then we ran it through the drum sander gauntlet down to a 120 grit paper; Next Up - Clean up the corners where the drum sander couldn't reach with a mouse or belt sander, sweep and poly coat (Thankfully our friend G is lending a hand while we are at work this week)
• CABINETS: Completed - Ordered and delivered, partially; Next Up - Finish assembly so they can be hung by my Big Poppa this Saturday, write angry email to company detailing the shoddy shape they were delivered, get glass cut for uppers
• WALLS: Completed - Patched and cleaned up the ceiling lines, framed a support behind appliances, exposed the brick along the sink wall; Next Up - Finish skim coating a few areas and then prime/paint

We still have a fair amount of detail work to tackle, like: figuring out exactly what paint colors to select, ordering cabinet hardware; hanging the vintage lighting fixtures (that everyone tells me are too low-hanging for the kitchen, but Pete and I are hobbits, so basically everyone over 5'5" ... this is your warning to watch where you're going in our kitchen); and getting the utility closet design in order. 

So before we do BEFORE + AFTER posts for all these decisions I thought it would be fun to show a few inspirational photos that guided the kitchen's design. Here goes: 

You want to know the scary truth about renovating a new home? Things get out of hand incredibly quick. Projects that weren't even projects become priority. Mole hills become mountains. Timelines get extended and then extended again. Budgets skyrocket. And it all starts to feel a bit claustrophobic. 

But, to an extent, the chaos is a necessary reality. 

So with everything on our list to get completed (cough, cough: the entire ground floor) it may seem silly that the backyard was one of our biggest woes, but it was. From day one, actually. 

Since we started with a sprint we quickly ran out of spots to store all of the demo materials. I listed the wood floors, a door, a toilet and additional wood scraps on Craigslist. Someone from Craigslist also came to salvage metal and the old appliances. But we STILL had to call 1-800-JUNK by the second week we were in the house. And at $300 a visit that was the only call we could make even if it was a huge help. So, as you can see from the above, the backyard became our dump.

Until we couldn't take it any more. 

Then Pete had the great idea to load up my car and visit a dump out near where his mom lives. So on Saturday we piled old lathe, cement board from the kitchen, broken tiles, metal pipes and bags of garbage into my Element and drove 45 minutes into the country.

You may be thinking: "Hey, Kristen, you can reuse that wood! Why throw it away?" Well that was my thought as well. I actually have a little remorse at tossing that lathe. But do you know what convinced me to just get rid of the entire lot? I was walking up the back steps to put a load of garbage in the back of my car and I tripped on a wire or metal rod and almost went face first into the business end of a board with nails sticking out of it. Right there and then I was over the backyard being a dump. I didn't want to die by impalement before I even made the first mortgage payment. 

As I awkwardly hunched over the steps staring at the gleaming nails inches from my face a million thoughts raced through my mind, like:

• Who would order the appliances? I spent weeks price checking and selecting models. 
• Did I write that angry email to the cabinet people yet? I didn't want to die before they felt my wrath.
• Would I ever figure out if the garbage people on Sunday were the same as on Wednesday? It was a mystery why they never picked up all the garbage one day but would the other.
• After my passing would Pete be horrified with all the random boxes that arrive from Ebay? And: did I win that vintage brass floor lamp or had I just imagined it?
• And finally, as I bled out on the stairs, would Pete remember to wipe Ernie's paws before he ran inside? We just sanded the kitchen floors and it was incredibly porous and the dog's feet were very muddy.          
  

 

So to avoid all that crazy from escaping my brain we just threw everything out. I picked myself up off the stairs and assured Pete that I was all right. We finished stacking what we could in the car and we drove it all out to the country. Like a bad dog in the 1950's, we left that garbage without a backward glance and drove home. 

And that was the story of how we spent our Saturday.

This weekend I feel particularly ambitious about our row house renovation goals. Mid-week we had a taste of warmth and then it quickly dipped back into bone-chilling cold. I am completely over this winter. I want to over now. So Pete came up with an ingenious idea to boost our moods: a Saturday morning trip to the dump. 

Yup, you read that right: we're waking up early, loading up my car with all the backyard debris, and driving over to the dump. We'll also stop by to see Pete's awesome mother on the way back. But we're doing this as a preemptive move against the weather. Because when the sunshine decides to show it's face again I want to be able to take advantage of our stamp-size backyard and not have to hop over garbage. 

Also ... we received our fist batch of cabinets. The rest are backordered, but we don't even care anymore. We've moving in the right direction and the reward at the end of the cross-country race (that we thought was a sprint) is a fully functional kitchen. In addition to cabinets, we also started patching and sanding the floors in the kitchen. AND walls might have gotten a skim coating this week to even out the plaster. 

So what does this all mean? It means we're back in business again hauling ass. No more curtain posts. No more look-what-I-impulse-bought posts. Oh, don't get me wrong, there's still drape hanging and impulse buying but we've got our eye on the prize. And that prize doesn't come in a styrofoam takeout container. 

There are a few things my mom does really well. Drinking wine is one of those things. Another is collecting oddly appropriate memes online. 

To illustrate her savant-like ability to find online quotes she sent me the image above. I love it and couldn't agree more. I believe that you should only buy what you love and love what you collect. That way you're always surrounded by something with meaning. Things can have history -- and tell our story -- if they're selected with intent. 

I was impressed. When I asked my sweet mother where she found this there was a slight pause and then she replied, "I have no idea." 

The one downfall of wine wisdom? Not remembering where said wisdom originated. 

You'll never know, people. Because this row house is never getting carpet. Rugs? Yes. Carpets? No way. These wood floors are going to be smooth and bare. 

That said, this weekend Pete and I got started on some finishing details. It was about time we hung up drapes and stopped giving the neighbors a show. We'd moved wood blinds from our bedroom to the guest room, but we still wanted to add an element of texture to the walls with fabric curtains.

I had to wait to grab a few pictures at night, because during the day it just looks like this:

Which is kinda perfect, because I really want the guest room to be dreamy and these curtains let just the right amount of light in. Speaking of curtains: these bad boys were a steal at IKEA for $39.99/pair. We have a pretty strict no-Ikea furniture policy in the house, but I had to break the rule a little. Why? You'll see soon enough, but we're suckers for anything entomology-related. 

Last week I admitted to having a small purchasing problem where one of the items in question was a vintage Griswold mailbox. These bad boys routinely sell on Ebay for upwards of $100 but I was able to snag one for a mere $53 because part of the cast iron isn't perfect. Well, perfect is boring. And the mailbox we had prior to the Griswold was just plain hideous. So -- perfect or not -- the Griswold is definitely a huge upgrade to the front facade. 

Pete kindly took a photo diary of his installation process: