The Olson Family Gazette

Kitchen Remodeling Details

OK, so this is a public service message for all of you out there who foresee a kitchen remodeling in your future. Somehow, no matter how incredibly hard you pre-plan, there are all sorts of minor details and decisions to be made as everything comes to a head. So, to give you some food for thought, and perhaps allow you to think about a few of these things ahead of time, here is a list of all of the ridiculous nonsense we've had to endure so far over the past week. I cannot believe that this is even close to an exhaustive list of possible details and snafus, but hopefully some of these will help you out:

1 - Door knobs & pulls: which ones go on which cabinets and what position? Don't forget that extra wide drawers probably need double knobs/pulls.
2 - Backsplash: standard counter backsplash, full wall tile backsplash, or a combination?
3 - Edging Tile - if you use tile on the floor or wall, are there any places where the tile ends that need a tile with a rounded edge?
4 - Crown Molding: Don't forget that this stuff sticks out from the cabinet and takes up additional space. Position your cabinets on the wall accordingly!
5 - End panels: What do the cabinets look like without the optional end panels? Is it finished with hardwood or laminate? Do you want an end panel so that you can have the same door style on the sides of the base cabinets, for a more finished look? And don't forget that the end panels will take up additional room along the wall, too!
6 - Flooring: Hardwood is cheaper than you think, even when you change your mind at the last minute. :-)
7 - Under cabinet lighting: This type of lighting doesn't have to be expensive, but make sure that your cabinets can accommodate it. In some cases, you'll need to attach additional trim to the underside of the cabinet to "hide" the light fixtures, which will add to the overall height of the cabinet (and therefore how close the cabinets come to the ceiling). This is, of course, in addition to the height of the crown molding.

And most importantly:
When you order your cabinets, make sure you have a professional measure done and that you are working with a sales person who is thoroughly knowledgeable about his/her product. If I were to go back and do only 1 thing differently, I'd go to a specialty kitchen/bath place, instead of a "big box" home improvement store.

That being said, we're still making progress and things are looking good! I'll be incredibly glad when someday soon Marc comes home from work, we all sit down and eat dinner, put the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, and then sit around and *NOT* talk about kitchen remodeling decisions. :-)

P.S. As we make progress on the kitchen, I'm posting pictures here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethie78/sets/72157619573784596/

Not a Baby Anymore.......

Today, little Miss Abbie turns 1 year old! And what a year it's been, too! A few highlights from the last month of this year:

The weather has turned much nicer, and Abbie has discovered the great outdoors! She's also made friends with the kids next door. Although they are a bit older (3 1/2 and 5 1/2), they still really like playing with her and on nice days will come ring our doorbell several times looking for Abbie. I believe her walking has improved greatly this month due to her need to keep up with them. No running yet, though.

She learned how to say "clock" earlier this month, and loves to call everything "clock" now (even things that she once named properly). We have a grandfather clock in our house that chimes every 15 minutes, so every 15 minutes when Abbie here's it, she exclaims "clock!" Admittedly, she still has difficulty pronouncing the "L" sound, so I sometimes get some questionable glances from strangers when she uses the word in public.

She's just starting to make some strides on the stair climbing. As you recall, she was climbing them well a couple months ago, then became very scared once and hasn't climbed since. Well, we can get her to climb small sets of stairs now (2 or 3), or we can place her on the stairwell just 2 or 3 from the top, and she'll climb the rest of the way, too. She still has a healthy fear of full-scale stairwells, though, for which I am grateful.

Her new favorite food is strawberries. I can feed them to her by the truckload, and she'll never leave a single one behind on her tray. Her hands smell really nice after she's eaten, too!

I've posted a new "set" of photos on my Flickr page. Some of them you've seen before, but I though it would be fun to create an album that showed a picture of Abbie each month, from birth to 1 year, so that you can see how much she's grown.

Chocolate Cake

So I'm at the grocery store, looking to purchase a box of cake mix to make a tasty treat for my dearest Abbie's birthday. I'm standing in front of the Betty Crocker mixes and I see "Chocolate Fudge." Then immediately next to this box, I see one labeled "Triple Chocolate Fudge." Boxes are the same size and the same price. And now I'm wondering.......

"Who in their right mind would buy the Chocolate Fudge?!"

11 Months & Still Trucking

Happy Easter!

And Happy Abbie's 11-month birthday! We've both been a little under the weater on and off over the last month, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to tell:

Abbie, as you all know, started walking a couple weeks ago. However, until just recently, she really hasn't shown too much interest in walking much. Then, just a few days ago, Abbie discovered that if she walks, she can use her hands to CARRY something. Now she's walking like crazy, from one room to the next, periodically falling on her rear end, but then getting right back up and walking again. Of course, now she's rearranging the contents of the house. She started to crawl up stairs, but then got really scared half way up one time, and has been afraid to climb them ever since (phew!).

She's also becoming much more verbal, her favorite syllable being "da". She'll reach for something she wants, but can't reach and then say "dadadadadada" until someone responds.

I don't have another height measurement for Abbie since her 9 month appointment, but I do know that last week, she weighed 20lbs, 4oz (we went to the Dr. because of an ear infection). She's a pretty tall, skinny kid right now, but she'll probably grow out a bit more before growing up again.

Solid food is going very well. She's just about weaned herself, too; I think it's because she just loves solid food so much there's no room left for anything else. So we've started her up on cow's milk now, and she seems to be liking it quite a bit. She recently discovered that if she throws her food on the ground that Kahlua will pick up after her, so we've had to quarrantine off the poor dog from the kitchen while Abbie eats. Still, it seems as though half her food gets thrown instead of eaten nowadays.

Oh, and a very special welcome to the world to our friends' little one - Happy Easter Birthday William!

We have a Biped!

So Abbie took her first "official" steps on Monday. I say official, because she could take one, maybe two steps before then, but now she can travel from point A to point B on two appendages. See Flickr for a video of her taking a few steps. She's traveling further now, but I think we may need to wait until this weekend to get a proper video of it.

Found the Camera!

Yeah! We found the camera! It was in the side pocket of a bag that neither of us knew had a side pocket (somebody figure that one out). Any-who, I found a video that I had taken a month ago already on the card, so I put that up on Flickr. I've also got some pictures on my Mom's camera that I'll post shortly, and will, of course, start taking pix with my own camera now.

Abbie Update - she turned 10 months yesterday, but I don't think she noticed. Still no more teeth, but I did a double-take yesterday when she smiled - the faces of the 4 top teeth are protruding through the gums so much, I thought they were the actual teeth, but there is still a thin layer of gums stretched over all of them. She's getting really good at saying "dog." Much better, in fact, than saying Mommy or Daddy. Yesterday, I heard her squeal at Kahlua and then say "dog" as clear as a bell (but most times, she still drops the 'g' at the end).

Family Update - We are about to embark on some home improvements. The furnace and a/c need replacing, and we're FINALLY remodeling the kitchen! We are shooting to have both done by early May, so that we can then get going on the landscaping in front of the house. Fun, fun, fun! I'm sure that I'll be posting before and after pictures, as well as using this blog as a means of venting when I get annoyed with the whole process. Luckily, I've been carefully honing my Crock-Pot skills for use during the remodeling process. If anybody has some really good slow cooker recipies (that do not require use of a stove/oven at all), I'm looking to add more to my repertoire.

Abbie Photo Crisis!

So we've pretty much exhausted our searching efforts - my camera is missing! And until we find it, no more pictures of Abbie! So for those of you who went on the ski trip with us a couple weeks ago, if you can do us a REALLY big favor and double-check any boxes or bags that weren't thoroughly unpacked, that would be incredibly helpful.

Update on Abbie: She's got 4 GIGANTIC big puffy bumps bulging out of her upper gums in her mouth right now. We had about a week of difficult nights, but it seems to have calmed down a bit now. So I don't know when these 4 teeth are coming in, but it looks like it's gonna happen all at once.

Abbie's "cruising" has gotten alot more confident, and she can easily go from sitting to standing without pulling up on anything now. Still no interest in walking. Her crawling has gotten extremely efficient, so I guess she doesn't see a need.

She has figured out how to climb, though. I was unloading the dishwasher the other day, and turned around to find her standing on the open dishwasher door! Now she tries to climb everything, even if it's much to tall for her (like the sofa). Luckily, she still has absolutely no interest in stairs.

I've missed a bunch of really great photo ops over the past few weeks. Hopefully we'll find the camera soon!