Before

I've been thinking about doing this blog for a while, and I figured it was time to get started.

We bought this ranch house in July of 1998, almost two years after we had our second child. Our old, 2-bedroom village colonial just wasn't cutting it for us anymore. Other than re-wallpapering, and installing a laminate floor, we really did not do much to the kitchen. We figured that we eventually would, but with two young kids and a dog around to mess things up, we figured that we would hold off. (Plus, it's expensive to do a kitchen renovation!)

On a side note, this is house happens to be the house in which I grew up. It was built in 1968, and I lived here with my father, mother, and brother, until my parents sold the house in 1986. My wife, Maura, and I bought the house in 1998 from the couple who bought it from my parents.

For years, Maura had been talking about a new kitchen. She would cut out pictures of magazines of kitchens she liked, and she also did some e-cutting and pasting from on-line pictures. Not surprisingly, one of Maura's favorite TV channels is HGTV. After a lot of hemming and hawing, I finally agreed that it was time to take the plunge and get going on the big kitchen renovation.

Here are some pictures of our kitchen from the Fall of 2015, before we started. Admittedly, it needed updating.

 Looking from the dining area 

Looking in from the back door

 Looking in from the hallway

And here's the dining area.

Looking from the kitchen

And, by the way, the renovation includes knocking down the wall between the dining area and the living room to create an open-concept. Here's what the living room looked like before we started renovating.

Looking in from the hallway

 Looking in from the front door

 The boxes in front of the window are the new hardwood flooring.

The hardwood Maura selected is Bellawood's Brazilian Pecan from Lumber Liquidators. It was one of the more expensive types in the store, but I have to admit that it does look nice.

I had to pick the flooring up in April of last year (and it's still sitting in my demolished living room!). To save on the delivery charge, I figured I'd pick it up myself. 19 boxes at 87 pounds each came to over 1,650 pounds. At least it all fit in my vehicle so that it only took one trip. That was a good workout unloading that and moving it into the living room!

The biggest load my Durango has carried!

 Well, that's my first blog post. Thanks for reading. I still have a lot of catching up to do!