Whew. Our Kitchen project is now done…and it turned out great!

I’ll let the pictures speak for themeslves.

  Before:                   After:

All-in-all it went pretty smoothly. Jess and I did this ENTIRE project our selfs and took about 5 hours over 2 days to complete. Not too shabby considering the project included cabinet removal & installation, re-routhing wall wiring & electical outlet-box installation, cabinet & wall preportion, along with the wall-mount above-range microwave installation. (Thanks Goehner Designer Builders, all that construction work in high school is really paying off) We were able to do this project for about half of what it would have cost if we’d had to hire the three seperate installers needed.

We love the finished product. If any of you have a similar kitchen or are in a similar “counterspace sitution,” we highly recamend doing this project as well.

Good Luck!

Buying (and living in) a condo is a lot like swimming in a Lake Martha. Sure, its inviting, the scenery great, and the adventure to arrive there exciting. But after you have taken the plunge and swam around for a while you find your stuck with little “attachments” not seen from the waters edge.

One of theses little nuances is “Condo Grilling” or “BBQing.” We received a fantastic grill as a housewarming gift (thanks Dave!). This stainless steel beast has all the bells and whistles, 4 burner, separate round side burner, cast-iron grates, and much more.

Come to find out, we can not store or use our new grill on our nice wood deck.

Fine. We moved the grill to the garage, only to find out that we can not have the grill’s 20 lbs LP tank in our “dwelling.” The City of Madison considers it a fire hazard. Each “family” in the multi-family dwelling (condo/town-home) residence is only allowed to store a 1 lb tank.

Moral of the story…For those of you in a similar situation, buy the SteakSaver by Mr. Heater.

This handy little item converts the normal 20 lb LP tank connection to a 1 lb LP tank connection. The Steak Saver costs about $24 from True Value and is super slick to both install and use. (It also sells online through Amazon and Northern Tool)

If you live in a multi-family dwelling condo or town-home in the City of Madison we highly recommend this item.

Now that things have finally settled down for us, we finally have the time to work on our condo. Our Corridor-Style kitchen leaves us with limited counter space. Thus, our first large project is to install an over-the-range microwave, as our current microwave takes up almost one entire counter by itself.

You know what that means? Yes…Another trip to Home Depot.

Our current set up is an standard exhaust vent and a cabinet too long to work with an over-the-range-microwave.

After getting a better idea of the severity of this project by doing a little Google research, we purchased all the needed tools, electrical outlets, boxes, and a really nice over-the-range stainless steel microwave by LG. I also ordered a new cabinet from a local AristoKraft dealer/show-room here in town. The cabinet should be built and shipped shortly.

We have all the puzzle pieces, and yet somehow I am still left staring at a wall of our kitchen for hours….probably not a good sign for things to come.

…Stay tuned for as this project progresses

Alright, I need to post this before the hilarity is lessened.

I begin by posing this question, “If I were a dead thing where would I be?”

Apparently in the life cycle of buying a house (condo) there comes a brief hazing period for new homeowners. Jess and I can attest to this first hand.

We have had this …well, odd funk coming from our basement for a couple of months now. The smell comes and goes and is more noticeable at certain times than others. As our cat hides down there during thunderstorms we assumed that the smell was coming from …well, her. However, this weekend Jess and I went on a “Find that smell” adventure.

We searched Hi and Low in that basement. We re-organized, swept, swiffered, and washed the floor. We thought we were in the clear… that is until last night when we were doing laundry.

The smell was back, and like a Bruce Willis film, it came with a vengeance. That’s it. I had had enough and I put my nose to the grind-stone in hopes of winning the “finding that smell” game. I had noticed a faint smell when I went to fill the dryer earlier this month. I assumed that with our cat, Katie, and wet clothes, 1 plus 1 = 2. This made sense considering I described the smell to Jess as remotely like “wet dog” or “wet animal.”

This brings me back to my original question. “If I were a dead thing where would I be?”

The answer…as you probably have already guessed…The Dryer.

We stopped the laundry and pulled up the lint trap to find living “bugs” and a few small hard white things in with the dryer lint. “Are those… bones?” asked Jess.

After a slight freakout, I with tools and Jess with a gloves & a bucket-o-chlorine, we attacked the dryer. Yes, no need to call the coroner, at 10:30 last night Jess and I removed not 1 but 2 WAY dead (we think) chipmunks, their “bug” friends, and more fur than I care to discuss from our dryer.

Gross…freakin aye, yes.

Apparently they had crawled into the outside dryer exhaust vent, traveled down the air chute, and got stuck at the base of the dryer exhaust. I could not tell you how long they had been there…but it was pretty aweful. Jess and I spent 2 hours removing dead parts, chlorining, scrubbing, and washing the Bejesus out of our dryer and surrounding floor. In fact, it was a good thing that today was garbage day, because we were able to get everything out of our house, including a few dryer parts that won’t be missed.

Needless to say, I will be making a home depot run after work so we can finish our laundry….animal free.