Kitchen Remodel Week 3 and the Doors are going in!!!

We're moving along at what sometimes seems to be a turtle's pace. Here's what we have to show for the week...

My father-in-law added trim to our existing flat front doors to mimic the newly added ones and they turned out amazing!




Eric primed and got one coat of white on the doors plus the fronts of the cabinets themselves, although I think they need a second coat and some touch-up along the edges. I LOVE how they match the new ones almost perfectly and will be a HUGE visual improvement for only $70! (A heck of a lot cheaper than all new cupboards!!!)







Also tore off the old Formica from the counters and ordered the dishwasher that will fit into one of the old cupboard spaces. We don't have enough room for a full size dishwasher but luckily they make an 18" model that will fit perfectly! ...even though it's smaller it's actually more money, go figure. BUT it's a gift from my dad! (Thanks Dad!!!)

Dad also got the breakfast bar trimmed out, but we need to repaint it as the factory paint powered off in the rain (weird.)



(Can't argue with FREE barstools from mom either! Just need to spruce them up a bit!!!)

A couple weeks ago we ordered our new exterior doors, well they came in and 'Jay the door guy' started installing yesterday! Here's my new front door from the inside, love that it's blue on both sides!!!



Week 4 means calling the electrician and plumber to get the dishwasher installed, putting up the cupboards doors, maybe starting to paint the BLUE, and Jay will be doing the back door and storm door (Front storm door is back ordered until the next week, he'll be back when it comes in to install it and to trim out the insides.)

Kitchen Remodel Week 2 AND a New Fiber Toy!

Well we're somewhere in the middle, which means everything is a mess and barely anything is done. What did we do this week???

Torn down the Formica that was glued to the walls under the existing cupboards. Now trying to decide how to handle the remaining glue issue on the plaster walls...ie cover it back up with something, just skim coat it with plaster, or try scrapping it off and then replaster.

Eric installed the new light in the nook, the new range hood, and replaced the outlets...only got shocked 3 times (one outlet was on a different breaker than the rest of the kitchen...weird.)

Picked up the cabinets and countertop for the nook on Saturday! Dad, Grandpa, and Eric cut the countertops for the cabinets and breakfast bar to size and set them in place Sunday. Next up, screwing them in place, trimming them out, and painting them. A little touch up painting on the walls and then the nook with be done and we will be on to the rest of the kitchen! (Can't wait until the construction part is done and I can get on to the fun part, decorating!!!)

I had to take time out of working on the kitchen to play with my new toy, a Fancy Kitty Motorized Kitten Drum Carder!!! I LOVE it! The ideas are swirling about new SMOOTHER batt blends!!!

This was my first batt, it spun up like butter!!!

On to week 3...finishing off the countertops and chiseling away the glue on the walls...fun fun.

Week 1

We did good this week!

The front and back doors and cabinets/counter tops for the nook are on order! I got all the wallpaper down and the walls scrubbed and ready to be painted next week! Eric got a coat of primer on the nook (yay no more yellow!) and we bought the new light fixtures. How about some pics?!

These were mid-week:





And these are from today, Sunday 10/11:









Next week we hope to have the nook painted and start installing the cupboards/breakfast bar!

Remodeling BEFORE

I struggle with things to blog about most of the time but I thought this would be a perfect thing to write about, our remodeling projects! We have decided to tackle 3 projects this Fall/Winter.

This winter while Eric is unemployed (being a golf pro in Michigan is seasonal work) he is going to do refinished the stairs and upstairs floors. This project probably won't start until 2010. Here are some before pics:







Right now we are tackling the other 2, New doors and THE KITCHEN. We are having 'Jay the door guy' do the doors for us so that won't be too must work for us, except once the front door gets put in we are going to tear out the carpet in the entry and put in tile. Here are some Before pics of the front and back entryways:






The kitchen on the other hand we are doing ourselves! We have been in our house for 4 years this December and I have hated the Kitchen since the day I first saw the house. How kitschy is this?!








We are going to put in some additional cupboards in the nook, plus a floating shelf for my KitchenAid appliances and a breakfast bar with stools. As for the main kitchen area, since our budget is $1000, we are going to keep the existing cupboards, fix them up a bit and put in new (higher) counter top to accomidate a small dishwasher (which was my birthday present from my parents 2 years ago and we realized the counters were too short for it to fit!)

LOTS of work ahead, I'll give you weekly updates at the end of every weekend, now off to peel wallpaper!

Tour of my Studio

I recently cleaned and reorganized my studio to help make me more efficient and at peace in my workspace. I am so happy with the results I thought I would share a tour of my fiber studio!

The view from the hallway.

Batts on the work table facing the window straight on from the door.

View from just inside the door.

Drum carder and work table.

Work station for making thank you notes, packaging batts and fiber, shipping, photo taking, and filing orders/expenses.

Close Up of Work Station.

Baskets for batts in process.

Cubbies holding fibers for batt making.

Corner of the room with add-ins on the left and additional fibers for carding on the right.

Yarn Storage on the left, Batt add-ins on the right.

Handspun stash in the blue totes, cubbies for personal spinning from other fiber artists on the left, and additional carding fibers/yarns for the ship in the clear totes.

Personal Spinning Stash.

Clear totes on the right from the top down: Black merino/alpaca(new!), Yarns to be listed in the shop, Rovings to be listed in the shop, Hand dyed merino, More hand dyed merino, and preassembled repeatable batt bags on the bottom.
Shoe Holder over the closet door on the left has cones of yarn for plying/wrapping.

Hope you enjoyed the little tour of my space. I plan of spending a lot of time this weekend in there! TGIF!!!

CAMP PLUCKYFLUFF!

We'll I'm finally home and unpacked from Camp PluckyFluff and all I can say is WOW! WOW what fun, WOW what awesome yarns we all made, WOW to meeting "internet" friends for real, WOW to good food, and just all around WOW!!! I'm totally re-inspired to create awesome batts and spin fabulous out of the ordinary yarns. I has such a good time! As always, I prefer to let the pics do the talking...for the most part. :)

Getting set up!

The shared fiber room DAY 1 (so nice and neat!)

The shared "batt add-ins" couch

Lexi picking fibers to card crazy batts!

Best sandwich EVER!

On the drum...

Finished Lexi Crazy batt!

Natalie (Cloudlover) carding a batt on my Louet...I think there might be a slew of new Louet carders ordered after the workshop, everyone seemed to love them, but of course they are the best!!!

Lexi Demoing on the 1st day

The shared fiber room Day2...

Esther (jazzturtle) and Heather (girlwithahook) carding batts

From Left to Right: Mary, Lexi, Tiger, Esther, Heather, Natalie, and me!

Mary (Butterflygirl) and I

Esther (jazzturtle) and I

Lexi and I

All around an amazing time! I can't believe it went by so fast, I'd do it again in a heartbeat!

I missed June...

but Happy July! LOTS of things have been going on, very good, busy things!

First of all, I got accepted to vend at the Michigan Fiber Fest in August!!! I am so excited! This will be my first time vending, so I've made my list (actually several pages of lists) and I'm plugging away at to get ample supply of both my regular line and OOAK batts made. If you're going to the festival, check out my booth and say Hi, I'll be in the back barn!

How about some Dyeing updates?

I bought some new dye colors and had to try they ALL out immediately. Love them!!!


I was interested to see how well some medium brown alpaca I have would overdye, Here is the results of that experiment:

The back right is the natural color of the alpaca, the back left is how the same dye concentration turns out on white merino, and the front is the overdyed alpaca. It's good to know I can get a variety in tones using this process!

Also, the weather was so nice and HOT this weekend I decided to give solar dyeing a go! HUGE success!!! I will be posting a tutorial on how I did it, low budget, very soon!

Raw Fleece anyone?!

I made my yearly trip to the local alpaca farm to pick up my loot on June 13th! I get what I get, no picking and choosing colors, but the deal is so amazing I can't pass it up! Here's the haul from this year!

Some of it is already off to be processed, some of it is waiting on blending decisions to be made, and about 10 fleeces or so will be available for sale raw in my booth at the fiber fest!

I also purchased a WONDERFUL Coated Cormo Fleece from Spinning Dreams Farm in Kentucky. I am absolutely amazed at this beautiful fleece!!! Customer service, shipping/packaging, and the quality of the fiber is above and beyond expectations! How about some pics?! This is Lucy:

Gorgeous huh?! It's already off to be processed into Pencil Roving!!! Cormo Pencil Roving, how exciting is that?!

Well I guess that's all for now! I will be posting again soon with the Solar Dyeing Tut. Have a happy 4th of July!!!