This is the project that never ends...yes it goes on and on my friend.

As we continue our never-ending project of renovating the kitchen, we have some progress to show!  The last time we checked in, we didn't even have drywall up, so this will look pretty impressive. Please shower us with compliments.

It was now time for us to install our drywall.  We had installed drywall once before in our bathroom project, so we had some experience on what we needed to do.  Little tip: pay the extra money to have the hardware store deliver your drywall if you don't have a truck.  It was such a time-saver to have all of the drywall brought to us, instead of shoving it into a too small Jeep while it snowed.

Jeff insulated the exterior wall.  This was a surprisingly easy step.  You just staple the insulation to the top of the studs, roll it down, and cut it.  The entire process took about an hour.

Once that was done, it was time to put the drywall on the ceiling.  (I helped out tremendously by repeatedly singing, "we got drywall on the ceiling" to the tune of "Dancing on the Ceiling" by Lionel Richie.)  We hooked the drywall up to this fancy drywall contraption lift and rolled it on up to the ceiling.

This proved to be a pain in the neck because we have recessed lights in the ceiling- which you need to cut a hole for.  But, if you don't measure and cut a hole before, then how do you know where the light is?  This conundrum stumped us for awhile, and we decided to just try measuring from the edges of the wall to the center of the light and cut a circle.  We used a drywall circle cutter to cut the hole. Wellllll, we didn't measure exactly right, so Jeff had to hack away at the drywall to get the exact circle we needed.  Thankfully, the recessed light covers shield the mistakes!  After the first piece was installed, we moved onto the remainder of the ceiling with minimal problems. (except the time Jeff accidentally left his tools on top of the drywall in the ceiling and almost forgot them up there)  After the stress of installing the ceiling, the walls were a piece of cake.  While Jeff installed, I followed behind him taping and mudding the seams of the walls.

At this point, we had to pause on walls until our electric was all finished. Since we were down a day while our electrician worked, we decided to sand and stain our floors.  Why not? We've done it before, so it should be easier this time. We rented two sanders, an orbital and a drum sander.  I personally like the drum sander better, I think it does a faster job than the orbital, but the orbital is cool because you can sand just like a regular palm sander.  Look at the beautiful pine floors we found under the linoleum!

Here are the floors after a coat of stain:

Once the floors and electric were finished, we tackled installing the cabinets.  This was not as easy as I thought it would be, because I had to be the brace to hold up the upper cabinets.  In a professional world, you would install a brace to make sure the cabinets are level, which also provides a resting area for the cabinets while you screw them into the stud.  Well, we were much smarter than that. I channeled my inner hulk while I silently yelled curse words and held the cabinet up from beneath.  We installed the corner uppers and then moved onto placing the lowers so we could install the pantry. When the pantry was installed, we realized that the pantry does NOT reach the ceiling like we previously thought.  

This was a problem because the uppers we had already installed were all the way to the ceiling.  So, down they came and we had to measure and level them all over again. 

Now the gap is even!

Once the cabinets were installed, everything seemed like it was on fast forward. I didn't take any pictures because time passed so quickly.  We primed and painted the walls, installed the appliances, and added base moldings and moldings to the top of the cabinets.  Jeff installed pendant lights over the peninsula, and the granite counter tops FINALLY arrived.

We've been able to cross off several items from our to-do list and we can see the finish line.  Hopefully within the next week I will have a finished/ decorated kitchen update!

Just for comparison's sake, here's a before and after, with a sneak peek of what we are working on this weekend:


  

Kitchen to-do list:

• Demo kitchen
• Design kitchen
• Run electrical
• Buy light fixtures
• Move water
• Add gas line
• Build half-wall separating mudroom
• Buy appliances
• Install drywall
• Prime and paint walls
• Sand and stain floors
• Install cabinets
• Install new appliances
• Trim work 
• Buy new door to bathroom
• Buy and install new backsplash
• Measure and install countertops