Spring Cleaning

With all the construction in the house, we've been living with a layer of dust over everything. Without a functioning kitchen sink has made it pretty difficult to clean. Now that the kitchen remodel is done, we're trying to unpack everything, which is causing more dust. We also had 2 big dinners this weekend. On Friday, we had Sujay, Matilde, Michelle, Mike, Show, Pete, and Corinne over for dinner. Mom cooked up a storm and left a trail of dirty dishes, pots, and counters in her wake. We hadn't even finished cleaning the wreakage from last night (including 2 dishwasher runs) before she started cooking again tonight. We had more family over tonight with my uncle and his family and my cousins. It's nice to have some home cooked meals after a month of eating meals using only our microwave. I'm looking forward to having some time to really unpack and clean.

Another note of good news. We just found out that Edwin's sister Jeannette and bro-in-law Jon are going to be moving to the Bay Area in May. YAY!!! She's also preggers and they are expecting a boy in June, so we'll be around to see the baby when he's born. It will be nice to have more family around. Now if we could only convince Laura and Alex to leave those harsh Cincinnati winters for some Bay Area sunshine...

The Long Road to Tahoe

Last weekend, we went up to Tahoe for our annual trip. We rented a house and 15 of us stayed there. Surprisingly, there were enough beds, sofas, and futons to accommodate. The trip was was pretty painful. I left with Show and Derek after Derek's flight came in from NYC. The normal 3 hour drive took us 8 hours. Now, it wasn't that painful for me since I wasn't driving and slept most of the way there- hey, I get carsick! However, this week has been rough because my back started hurting really badly on Monday. Like I could barely walk painful. I worked from home on Tuesday and Wednesday to give my back a rest because I'm normally running back and forth between buildings. Don't worry though- I'm all back to normal again now.

The rest of the trip went fine. I slept in on Saturday since we didn't arrive until 4AM. There were a few of us hanging out at the house this year- Debbie, Bhavana, and Sujay/Kokomi. We chatted and hung out while the others snowboarded. Unfortunately, we missed the karaoke that Pete had brought up because it took us so long to get to the house on Friday. And on Saturday, everyone was beat from either the drive up or the snowboarding that everyone was in bed by midnight. Alas, we are getting old.

We finally have completed the kitchen renovation. We're still unpacking our things, but the contractor is done. I'm pretty happy with the way everything came out. The color seems a little bright to me right now, but maybe it will grow on my like the green guest room did or it will seem less bright once we put the furniture in. Here are some pictures of the finished product.



My parents came in last night and so we're going to take the new kitchen out for a spin this weekend. We'll be having a few friends over on Friday night and then family on Saturday night.

Tight Squeeze

So we had a little remodel scare this week. When we arrived home on Tuesday, we were pleasantly surprised to see that they had installed the faucet (a functioning sink!), the dishwasher, and the washer. However, we also noticed that the stove was sitting in the middle of the kitchen in front of the area where it should be. Why? Because the counters were just a smidge too long. We're talking like an 1/8 inch. The contractor was very precise about the location of the cabinets, so we could see that the stove would fit between the 2 cabinets. However, the countertop was hanging slightly over the cabinet and plywood template. Here's the thing about remodel errors- you never really know what to freak out about when things go wrong. How bad is it really? We were afraid that it was going to take a lot of time/effort to fix- we didn't even want to think about the blame game- who's fault is it and will there be additional cost? Luckily, we made a call to the granite people the next day and they came out and had it fixed the next day by the time we got home. It just looked so scary because things are glued, grouted, sealed, and seemed so final. We've been really lucky because the hiccups that we have experienced are all pretty minor. We've been talking to our neighbor who started their remodel a week or 2 after us and it looks like their remodel is going a lot slower. Granted, they are also remodelling 2 bathrooms at the same time, but they have had more frustrations than we have had.

Our contractor said that he should be done on Friday. I can't believe it. We're going up to Tahoe this weekend, so we'll need to clean next week before the parents come, but there's nothing like company coming over to give you a deadline to clean up fast. I don't know if our house would ever get clean if we didn't have people coming over.

This triggers a memory of the conversation we had with the Schneiders a few weeks ago. You know that you are good friends when:

• You don't feel like you need to clean the house because it's just XXX coming over.
• You can fall asleep while you're hanging out with XXX.
• You can bring over half of a cake to share (instead of a whole cake.)
• You can take your socks off at their house.
• Your kid pees, pukes, etc. on the rug and you know where to get the cleaning products in their home.
• You clean their house for them. (I really like this one- thanks Ellen!)
• You bring your own slippers or have a toothbrush at their house.
• You bring your laptop over to their house and you can access the internet via their wireless connection.
• You do your laundry at their house when you come over to hang out.
• You can talk about the fight you just had with your spouse, in-laws, etc.
• You help them move all their crap even though you know it's going to be a pain.

Looking forward to fun with friends this weekend.

Nooks and Crannies

It looks like we are on the home stretch of our kitchen remodel. We got our granite counters this week. Just like a wedding, things don't always happen perfectly. This time, it wasn't our contractors. Apparently, when you replace counters, they use a plywood template to support the granite countertops. The contractors had routed out grooves underneath the peninsula lip so that it could be supported with metal L supports. It turns out that the plywood was a little wider than the counter guys needed it, so they shortened from 36 inches to 33. That would be OK except that they shortened the side with the grooves which meant that the grooves were now too short. So now, our contractor has to fix that because otherwise, the plywood rests on top of the metal instead of the metal being flush with the rest of the plywood. Also, when they screwed the pylwood back over the counters, they screwed it too close to the edge and now there are 2 spots where the wood is "bubbling" under the counter. It's nothing that anyone will see, but you just hate knowing that it is there.

They also finished tiling the backsplash and started painting. We're told that they should be finished this week. I'm looking forward to it just so that we can clean the house from all the dust. It definitely seems closed to being finished. One of the things the contractor is waiting for us is to decide where the light over the breakfast nook goes. We're having a tough time deciding because we've been waiting to get one of those L shaped benches with a round table, but we're not sure if we have enough room. Ideally, we would want to have the light fixture over the center of the table, but that means that we have to figure out what size table goes there. Geez, what am I going to talk about once the remodel is done?

This weekend was pretty relaxing. We went out to dinner with Show on Friday. On Saturday, I volunteered with the Princess Project while Edwin went surfing. This is the third time I have volunteered with Princess Project and it was fun. It's not the most altuistic- we're giving away gently used bridesmaids dresses to high school girls to wear to the prom, but it's fun. On Sunday, Edwin went surfing again and then we pruned the lemon tree in the backyard and used the BBQ in the backyard for some burgers for the first time. Next weekend, we're heading up for our annual Tahoe trip. Should be fun as always.

Little by Little

This weekend, I went on a booze cruise for work on Friday. I've been on cruises like this before in NYC, but not in SF. It was fun, but I'm glad that I didn't have to pay for it!

We also had a nice weekend hanging out with friends. The Schneiders stopped by on Saturday and we got sandwiches and ate in the park here in Alameda. Then, we had dinner with the Banerjees at Ruth's Chris in Walnut Creek. Good stuff- all that butter... but it tasted really good going down. I had the Cowboy Ribeye which is just a ribeye with the bone in. Very tasty. I still say that prime rib is my favorite cut of meat, but a ribeye is pretty good too. It's funny, with the remodel, we've been doing some extreme eating. One night, we're eating ramen and the next night we're eating steak. I thought we would be using our grill more often, but we haven't used it at all yet. 2 weeks without a kitchen hasn't been as bad as I thought it would be. I hate not being able to wash dishes, but we've been eating pretty well.

Today, we had brunch at the Thai temple and then went to the Alameda antique fair with Monica. We're not really into antiques, but it really interesting and there was just so much stuff. Our next door neighbors offered to have us over for dinner since they knew that we were without a kitchen tonight. It turned into an impromptu neighborhood BBQ with 5 couples from the block. We've been really fortunate to have such nice neighbors. I can't wait to return the favor once the kitchen is done.

Speaking of the kitchen, they completed the cabinet installation this week. Now we're just waiting for the counter, sink, and faucet to be installed. There are still a lot of little details, but we can really start to visualize what the kitchen will look like. We're still deciding on wall colors, but we're leaning towards a yellow or orange. I can't believe that the remodel is already half over.