Base kitchen cabinets

After returning from a great trip to the UK we are back to work. We've purchased and put together the remaining ikea cabinets. The doors for the upper cabinets and the handles have all been installed. We've also decided upon and purchased our tile for the countertop and backsplash. Now we need to get all the bottom cabinets aligned perfectly and figure out the plumbing for the sink so we can start tiling.

Under cabinet lights

John hard-wired (while I held in place) our lights for the kitchen cabinets. Wiring lights has become a fairly simple job for us now. We put up basic fluorescent lights - it puts out more than enough light, and we will have trim along the bottom so they will never be seen.

medicine cabinet

We finally installed our bathroom medicine cabinet. This was really a trial run for the ikea cabinets as it is also from ikea. The trickiest part is hanging the doors, partly because the screws are cheap and bend easily so you only get a few chances to make adjustments before the screws start to weaken.

The Kitchen Cabinets

Our wall cabinets are up!! I must say I am very impressed with our work today. We had to shim the cabinets quite a bit at the end (farthest from the corner) but our end cover panel fits perfectly so it's just fine. We still have one more cabinet to attach next to the corner cabinet. It's a small open shelf cabinet and we haven't decided how to best attach it to the corner as it doesn't come with the open holes the other cabinets come with. We still have to attach the doors and put in the shelves, but the hard part is done.

Master Bedroom

We've painted the master bedroom - a nice light purple. The closets are also painted and the bar is hung. We're currently working on re-doing a few spackle lines on the ceiling. It was looking great until we hooked the light back up, and at night when the light is on it casts very unfriendly shadows. Once that's fixed we'll hang the closet doors and start the trim.

Kitchen Flooring

Our kitchen almost has a new floor! We borrowed a nailer from the local tool library (a great $ saver) and have started to lay down the floor. Once we decided upon a pattern it went down fairly fast. We have a few more rows to nail in this week, then we'll be getting ready for the cabinets, sink & stove. Also notice the new paint! The black corner in a few of the photos is our new frig (take 2, live & learn!). After the 1st needed the service guy to come out twice only to leave us with hot air blowing we decided to return it and buy new. We opted to have the frig delivered to save the hassle & we were able to get it in black to match our stove. Now we are very pleased.

Master Bedroom Floor Finished!

Floors have been refinished!! Pictures were taken right after applying the poly so they are still wet. The floor came out a bit darker than we expected, even though it was a clear gloss poly, but it looks good. We cheated a bit with the wood filler and bought the cheap uncolored filler and decided not to go through the effort of staining it. It looks fine and we're happy but it would also look great if it had been a perfect match.