Kitchen Remodel

After more than 20 years of living with a kitchen that was perfectly fine but one that we didn't love, we decided to bite the bullet and do a full renovation. Although we generally kept the same layout, we worked with a designer regarding colors, some design work and selection of materials. Our old kitchen was demolished on June 5th and our new kitchen was finally completed on August 2nd - more than eight weeks later. We went 5 1/2 long weeks without a stove, but cooked at home (grill and crock pot) all but three nights, which we all considered a huge success. We definitely got sick of eating the same foods over and over, that's for sure. But the kitchen was definitely worth the wait! We spend a lot of time in the kitchen, cooking, baking and hanging out, so it is nice to have something that is so sleek and easy to work in. 

Out with the old....

One of our friends is the CFO at the company we worked with - he snapped this photo of our Taj Mahal counters being cut the day before they were installed.

We love our faucet and the fact that our sink is molded into the countertop - no seam!

The day we got our stove back was a big one - it made the rest of the process a bit easier to deal with.

They finished while we were at the beach on vacation.

Beginning the massive process of unpacking our new dishes and putting everything away.

We still need window treatment, but here is the finished product.

Backyard Re-Model

For years, we have been talking about building a deck off of the back of the house and getting a hot tub but this year, we finally made our dreams a reality. It was no easy task. We had to have a beautiful (but dying) tree removed and had to have the concrete stairs demolished. Although we thought that we'd be able to build the deck ourselves, once we decided to put the hot tub ON the deck, as opposed to on a concrete slab on the ground, we thought it best to hire someone to build the deck. All of those things were the easy part, as was picking out and buying the hot tub. Actually getting the hot tub delivered was an entirely different story - despite making the purchase in mid September, the hot tub was not actually delivered to the house until early December, rescheduled time and time again. Once safely installed on the deck, we needed an electrical upgrade to ensure that everything would run smoothly. And so far, it's been great. For all those people that said "but you aren't hot tub people" - we are using it three or four nights a week, including Christmas Eve, when it was 10 degrees outside. Emily has been taking dips after workouts, to sooth her tired legs. It is really great and we are looking forward to years of soaking.

We absolutely loved this tree, but it was rotting from the inside out and every storm meant more lost limbs. We were worried the next big storm would drop the tree on the house so it was a bit of relief when it finally came down.

The contractors put up the deck in three days. 

We still need to get furniture for the deck, but will take our time with that.

January Storm

Over MLK Weekend, we had a huge storm in Connecticut.  Rather than getting a lot of snow, we had only a few inches of snow, followed by A LOT of freezing rain.  The rain covered absolutely everything and took down a lot of limbs. We suffered some of the worse storm damage we've had in years, starting early Sunday morning when a huge limb fell in the backyard.  A few hours later, another limb fell, missing our generator by inches.  For the next twenty four hours or so, with high winds and temps below zero, several limbs hung on our roofs, dragging and scraping while we held our breath, hoping we wouldn't lose any more limbs, especially near the generator.  We never lost power, although so many homes around us did.  We ended up coming through it with no damage to house, thankfully, but it was a scary couple of days.

Just barely missing the generator. 

Everything was encased in ice. 

Beautiful sunset on Sunday night. 

The temperature when Emily and I left for her soccer tournament on Monday morning.  We've had this thermometer for more than ten years and this is the first time it's ever registered a negative reading.  We think it was probably closer to -5.

Charlie Brown Tree

We saw taller trees, but they were too thin; we saw fatter trees, but they were too short.  This one ended up being the tallest/fattest one we could find, and it will have to do for this year.  Funny enough, as soon as it was in the stand, Elizabeth said, “it’s kinda of a Charlie Brown tree, huh?”  Love that the big tree gene is going to survive another generation! 

Emily's new ornament. 

Elizabeth's new ornament! 

Our vacation ornament. 

Charlie Brown tree.