Adventures at The Bunny Manse

This Sunday we took a day trip to Charlotte but really IKEA. While browsing the 'scratch n dent' as-is section for linens, Harris pointed out a fridge. Yeah, ok, so what, I'm in a bin. No says he. That's the fridge we were looking at upstairs. And it's half off making it $900. It's a side by side counter depth fridge with ice and water in the door. We need to buy it. So I go stand by it to claim it - three other people realized what it was while we were chatting about it. Then ask about the warranty stuff - 4.5 years from manufacturer and yes they will deliver it to your house for $100. Why in the world do we need a new fridge? Because the one we bought in 2013 has been a PITA. Currently the ice maker is broken (again) and will cost over $500 for us to fix. So we bought the fridge and sold the other one as is on CL costing us less than the repair cost of the old fridge that has had multiple problems.

Yesterday we woke up to the pouring rain and decided to go to the Pottery Barn outlet in Gafney. We had some free money to spend there and wanted to use it toward a rug.  We looked through rugs for what seemed like hours, almost rationalizing ourselves into a huge purchase of a gorgeous rug that was WAY TOO EXPENSIVE. We ended up selecting this one in a 8x10 version, paying about $200 for it after our discount.  The other very beautiful rug would have cost more than 3 of these.  So this now lives in our living room and is being positioned, vaccumed, and adored by Harris and the cats. On the way back, we took a bunch of remnants back to Ikea. Life lesson - do not buy handles or knobs at Ikea...we never use them/always take them back. There we picked up a scrap piece of wood from the As-Is section that Harris will turn into at least two floating shelves for the kitchen. We also got pot holders because, well, we had zero pot holders and some candles for the house. A...

The kitchen a week after moving in... Harris has been putting the IKEA cabinets together at night and whenever he has free time.   Our new fridge is awesome and fits the space nicely! I even used the fancy ikea microwave with it's non-standard control system. Ikea cabinets GE, Kenmore, Bosch, IKEA appliances Countertops TBD Obvious things we need to do 1. Get counters. 2. Close those holes in the chimney. 3. Replace the glass in the windows- the panes are currently paitned. 4. Add trim to the top of the windows 5. Figure out what we're doing with that door into the laundry room. Me thinks... a spice rack? 6. Put handles on the cabinet doors and drawers Not so obvious stuff left to do 1. Find a way to insulate 2. Install the range hood 3. Add a place to eat for the duration that is not the couch.

so very much to get done this week. The legs did not arrive with our cabinets. This is incredibly frustrating. I spent an hour on hold on Halloween to get them, but instead, I got an email asking for my credit card number two days later. I still don't have my damn cabinet legs. IKEA I AM SCOWLING AT YOU. This delays : sink installation, cabinet finishing, countertop templating, moving, using the kitchen, etc, etc, etc.  Very much not happy about this. We have appliances that need to be installed so we can use them, but of course, see above. We have to clean. A lot. We need to put the wood window trim back up in the rooms we're going to be living in. We really need to do this like, now... Hook up the rest of the heaters because, oh em gee it's cold in there without them. It's all very achieveable stuff that we knew we needed to finish. But now we're all sick so it's like, the end of the damn world to cut a board. Next week will be nice. We'll be m...

  We drove down to Ikea on Saturday to finalize our kitchen order. Alice was awesome, figured out cabinet placement and told Harris what extra to build and how to hack the kitchen. Because of their current promotion, we're getting the side cabinet and the microwave basically for free.  Spend $3500 get 10% off, spend $4500 get 20% off. So if you're already at 3500, anything else you add is free.  Math is fun.     All of this is getting delivered on Saturday, so we should be good to get it installed after the floors are finished.

We have, at most, 21 days to get the house ready for us to live in. To this end.... Thursday : Accent Hardwood did the rough sand in suite and kitchen. Here is Madeline feeling the floor in the suite Laid 70% of new dining room floor. Madeline being a silly monster ballet girl Then David Glick, Rob, and Alvin prepped, primed, and painted the remaining two wood rooms we found downstairs. While wandering around I saw this little bit of graffiti. Wonder who Black Chicken Billy (or perhaps Boy) was/is. Today, Friday Accent Hardwood is there finishing the floor in the dining room. Century Slate is there fixing the flat roof leak and patching the two remaining holes in the slate roof at the ridge. On Saturday Harris will be laying the subfloor in that giant hole in the kitchen while I take Madeline to the Farmer's Market and Cameron's birthday party. While she's at the party, I'm going to sears to pick up the applianc...

Taking into account comments, good ideas, and original plans I think we have a new contender. No, before we hadn't thought about where the microwave would go or the trashcan. :) Originally Sara had us putting the range on the chimney and running counters all around it. We couldn't figure out how in practise that would work and started dreaming about dual ovens and cooktops in counters and all sorts of things that are fancy and pretty, but not really needed for how we live now or plan to live later.    This one gives Harris a gas cook top and me a convection oven. Dual fuel from bosch and we're both happy.     It also creates two separate work stations on either side of the range and will fit around the door that will exist for the next year, but not forever. I like that this way we're not building out something that will have to be torn out in 12 months. I really really hate that.   ...

Our overall budget for the kitchen is ~ 7,500 (including appliances, cabs, and counters). The reason we're scaling back on appliance buying for now, focusing on waiting for crazy deals, etc, is because our plans have outstripped our budget. We will have a beautiful kitchen with the appliances we want, but we're not going to go into crazy debt to get it there. we're getting the cabinents from IKEA and using their handy 3-d kitchen designer, this is what we've come up with so far. No, we're not painting the walls blue, I just couldn't figure out how to get the woodwork pattern to show up without having it blue.  This is what you would see from where the back door with sidelight currently is   We want a side by side fride with water/ice in the door and a bosch dual convection wall oven on the right cabinet.  The gas cooktop will go under that hood, giving us enough counter space on either side of the cook top. And if you entered from the butler's p...