Great kitchen remodel of 2011: Cabinet removal

Next on the kitchen remodel, the cabinets were removed! Hooray! Darren posted an ad on Craigslist saying they were free if someone wanted to remove them. He received about 10 offers! Apparently free cabinets are all the rage. Saturday morning at about 9:15, two gentlemen showed up to take the cabinets away. Farewell cabinets! Here are some pictures after they are gone.

This is a picture taken from about where the cabinets used to be, looking at the dining room. Not much changed here, but it will!
This is taken from about where the old cabinets by the fridge were.
This is taken from the back door. That's Darren sweeping up the gross that was under the cabinets. He's a good Darren.

This is taken from the front door area. Look how much space that opened up!

Does everyone remember the great mouse battle of 2010? Do you see that hole along the baseboard to the right? That's where the little vermin were getting in!

And just for fun, here's Eddie checking out the new discovered mouse hole. Don't worry though. Even though it looks like he's checking to see if he can attack the mice who may want to invade our home, I assure you the dog is perfectly useless in that respect.

Next: Tile removal!

The Great Kitchen Remodel of 2011

We're doing a kitchen remodel at Darren's house so I decided to dust off the old blog to use as a place to post the progress.

First, back story. Thanksgiving 2009, we decided to put new grout down on the counter top tiles. The prep area went great and the new grout looked fantastic! We started to take out the grout near the sink, and the tiles just popped off. Apparently the water had rotted the grout and the tile glue.

This started a debate as to whether we should just glue the tile back down, or get new counter tops. New counter tops won out. A new debate began. Should we get new cabinets or just put new counter tops on the existing cabinets? New cabinets won. The bottoms of a couple of cabinets were rotting through so this was probably a wise decision. Yet, another debate arose. Should we put down new floor tile during all of this as the current tile is old and chipped and makes the floor appear perpetually dirty? Why yes. Yes we should. Quite a bit of research later and we're moving on with the remodel.

Let's start with some before pictures.

This is the view of the dining room and part of the kitchen from the front door. Note where the fridge is currently as well as the cabinets that extend to part of the dining room.

This picture is taken from the other side of the fridge towards the back door. Not the cleanest the kitchen has ever looked but it gives you the idea of the layout.

This is a view from the back door area looking towards the fridge. You can kind of see the bare wood where the sink is. Also note the cabinets at the back which are currently next to the fridge. We are considering a change to the layout.

That's all for the before section! Next: Progress!

Alive and Well!

No one needs to tell me how bad I am at this, let's just all admit Shae has a really hard time doing anything organized and move one. But some quick updates are in order. Darren has graduated from George Washington law school as of May and is now studying madly for the Bar Exam. I keep calling this Bar Exam his final on accident but it sounds right. Only he's studied way more for this than finals. I swear it's like the stuff he spent the last 3 years learning have nothing to do with the bar or something. I'm finally learning my new job function as of yesterday (don't worry, I've had a new title for 5 months now.) and work has been insane enough to make me wonder if I can get a law passed that will give me an extra two hours each day. (Get to work on that Darren!) I've been missing my friends a lot, both those in Utah and those that graduated from law school with Darren and moved to other uninhabited lands. (Seriously? Indianapolis? Come on Ross you can't go making stuff up.) I got to spend a week in Utah with family and what not but it wasn't all that relaxing as I had packed WAY too much into that teeny little week. Other than that, I'm just living the dream!

Lazy Shae, back from laziness, for a brief visit

Three months later, (or so) a post! I've been on Facebook way more than I should be, and as a result have not been posting on my blog. I'll try to do better, but no promises. I've been a little busy with work and Darren and holidays and visits. It doesn't like it will get better anytime soon since as of Monday I'm no longer an hourly employee, I'll be on salary, and half expected to work more than 9 hours a day. At least for the first little bit. I hope everyone else is doing good and less lazy than me. :)

Slacker Shae, back from Utah

Sorry I've been horribly negligent! But I had an amazing trip to Utah with family and friends. Now I'm just excited for Darren to come back on Tuesday! I feel like I've been in a long distance relationship forever! Thanks to those I saw, and I'll have to catch up to those I didn't next time!

Recipe Tag

My cute friend Shawna started a recipe tag and since my family knows how much I love cooking and trying new things, I figured I would join in. Everyone who want to join in just post a recipe on their blog. This is my newest favorite meal!

BASIL CHICKEN PASTA
Shalisa Thompson
1 (8 ounce) package angel hair pasta
2 teaspoons olive oil
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 clove garlic, chopped
2 1/2 cups chopped tomatoes
2 cups boneless chicken breast halves, cooked and cubed
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes or hot sauce
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

I prefer to cook my chicken with garlic salt and pepper to taste so it’s well flavored to begin with. Cook the angel hair pasta as directed till al dente. Drain and set aside. Meanwhile, in a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high heat. Saute the onions and garlic till onions are softening. Stir in the tomatoes, chicken, basil, salt and hot pepper sauce/red pepper flakes. Reduce heat to medium, and cover skillet. Simmer for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, until mixture is hot and tomatoes are soft. Toss sauce with hot cooked angel hair pasta to coat. Serve with Parmesan cheese. Variation: instead of fresh tomatoes, use canned, diced tomatoes. Still delicious!

This is pretty easy especially if you use canned tomatoes. And Darren and I both love this one!

The Redline Metro and Shae's Commute

Most of you have probably heard about the accident on the Redline Metro that happened last Monday. 9 people were killed and I think over 70 were injured. I do take the redline home and to work but I'm on the opposite side of where the accident was. That doesn't mean that this hasn't affected my commute though! Tuesday I got into work a half hour later than normal. Trains are going really slow, and they're driving them manually as opposed to the much faster automatic system. They think the automatic breaking system failed or at least failed to recognize an obstacle and that's the cause of the accident so until they have confirmed this, they are going manually. On Wednesday however, this was my favorite. Not only are the trains going slow, they are going farther between. So normally when I get to my stop, I wait about 4-6 minutes for a train, tops. Now, I am waiting 10-20 minutes for a train. I'm on the second stop of my side of the metro so normally the trains aren't super full yet. However, you give people about 10-20 minutes to build up and you have quite a crowd! So when trains come by my station, they're already quite full. On Wednesday, I waited about 15 minutes for a train, and when it came it was so full I wasn't sure I was going to fit! Since I'm the second to last stop, when we see trains going the opposite direction we know they'll be coming back soon. Since I remembered seeing two trains fairly close together, I decided to risk it and wait for another one. I lucked out and it came along less than 5 minutes later and it was much less full. I even got a seat! Well, about 3 stops away from where I get off, we were now super super full. And because we were so full, our doors malfunctioned and couldn't close completely. So they took our train out of service and we all had to get off and try to wait for another train. The problem with this is that the trains coming along are already so packed, that they can only fit about 3-4 more people per car. Literally. People were stuffing those trains so full that doors were being closed on appendages, bags, purses, even whole bodies! But people kept squishing and fit a person or two more. Well, picture if you will, about 200-300 people who are already late for work because the trains are so slow, trying to squish onto these trains with barely enough room for 4 more people. It was quite comical. I sat on the platform and giggled to myself. More than an hour later, there were still about 50 of us on the platform when an unusually less crowded train came by and I think we all got to fit in. Or at least the large majority. I even had enough room around me to text Darren without having the cell phone 2 inches from my face! I missed the meeting our branch had that morning and got into work an hour and a half late but my boss knew what was going on and kind of expected this to happen for the next little bit. Today it only took the train 20 minutes longer than normal to get into work. It's an improvement!

The other day on the way home, we were also very very crowded and a little girl about 7 or 8 had her arms around her mother who was standing extremely close to me and the little girl feeling there was someone close to her mother started to feel my arm and stomach. I tried to step back in surprise but we were crowded enough that didn't work out real well. I kind of laughed when I figured out what had happened but it was a little startling for that split second. Hopefully they get this situation figured out soon or we'll start having people get smothered to death.

There is a bright side to this sad situation. I don't think I've ever talked to people on the metro as much as I have lately. It's hard to ignore the person who's lap you're basically sitting in, or the person who's arm is around you so they can reach a pole to hang on to, or the person who falls into your arms when the train stops/starts. So I'm getting to know my neighbors in more ways that I probably would care to, but the talking is good anyway.