Cabinets are almost done!!!

I have been working night and day on these cabinets trying to prepare for next week when I will be on vacation to start the demolition in the new kitchen. All I have left to do is hang the doors, sand, and then stain. Can't believe it is getting this close!

So here is where it kind of starts (after all the planing and sawing), building panels.

Here is the shop in all it's glory

Here are the upper corner cabinets and above the fridge and stove cabinets. Notice the finished doors, hard to believe they were just glued up panels.

bottom corner cabinet, stove and sink cabinets

other corner and big drawer cabinet

Here is the nice big island with all it's big drawers, not the greatest picture but you can get the idea. Also the other upper corner cabinet

upper corner cabinet with nice "rays" in the corner door

Brook's photo

Check out this photo I snapped of my friend Brook.  Just follow this link to her photography website.  While you are there, check out her work.  She is amazing! 

Here comes the Pink Panther!

Chloe.....Hmm...."Helping" fold diapers

Staying up into the wee hours

Once again, I couldn't sleep this weekend, so I made these 3-D photo frames.  They are much neater in person.  I tried to get some up close pics to show the detail.  I found out that you can buy pre-made flowers similar to these, but I would rather cut them out and create them myself.  I know, I am ca-razy!

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness! I love this photo!

Why do we use cloth diapers?

 

One years worth of disposable diapers!

In 1988, over 18 billion diapers were sold and consumed in the United States that year.⁴  Based on our calculations (listed below under "Cost: National Costs"), we estimate that 27.4 billion disposable diapers are consumed every year in the U.S.¹³
The instructions on a disposable diaper package advice that all fecal matter should be deposited in the toilet before discarding, yet less than one half of one percent of all waste from single-use diapers goes into the sewage system.⁴
Over 92% of all single-use diapers end up in a landfill.⁴
In 1988, nearly $300 million dollars were spent annually just to discard disposable diapers, whereas cotton diapers are reused 50 to 200 times before being turned into rags.⁴
No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.⁵
Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste.  In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste.⁵
Disposable diapers generate sixty times more solid waste and use twenty times more raw materials, like crude oil and wood pulp.³
The manufacture and use of disposable diapers amounts to 2.3 times more water wasted than cloth.³
Over 300 pounds of wood, 50 pounds of petroleum feedstocks and 20 pounds of chlorine are used to produce disposable diapers for one baby EACH YEAR.⁶
In 1991, an attempt towards recycling disposable diapers was made in the city of Seattle, involving 800 families, 30 day care centers, a hospital and a Seattle-based recycler for a period of one year. The conclusion made by Procter & Gamble was that recycling disposable diapers was not an economically feasible task on any scale.¹⁷
Disposables.  For these calculations, let's assume that a family needs about 60 diapers a week.  In the San Francisco Bay area, disposable diapers cost roughly 23¢ per store-brand diaper and 28¢ for name-brand.  This averages to 25.5¢ per diaper.  Thus the average child will cost about $1,600 to diaper for two years in disposable diapers, or about $66 a month⁹.

Cloth Diapers.  For cloth diapering, each family will probably need about 6 dozen diapers¹⁰.  The cost of cloth diapering can vary considerably, from as low as $300 for a basic set-up of prefolds .  This means the cost of cloth diapering is about one tenth the cost of disposables.

 

Here is our "pile" of diapers (plus a few that are in the wash :).  This is what we started with and what we will end up with.  Not to mention we will use them on our next offspring! 

So, we use cloth diapers for this little one's future.

I see your true colors shining through, I see you true colors that's why I love you

We were out on one of our late-night swims last night at Mamaw and Paw's place.  The pool has a light that changes colors and Chloe has been very interested in it.  We always say the different colors to her as they change. So anyway, we were floating around, not really paying attention to the light, when Chloe pipes up and yells "blue", then the light changed to purple, and she said "purple", and then as if we weren't freaking out enough, it changed to green and she said "green" !!!!!  I know this makes me look like "one of those parents", who thinks their kid is a genius, but lets face SHE IS!!! Just kidding.  I wanted to post this for Chloe to read when she gets older.  

Yeah, she knows a few colors, but she still hasn't figured out that it probably isn't a good idea to eat random things off the floor or that the toilet isn't the best place to wash your hands :) 

14 months old

Our little carpenter

Miss Chloe has been Poppa's little helper with the cabinets. 

It's not the heat, it's the humidity :)

It is HOT and when we aren't in the pool at Mamaw and Pa's house, we end up playing in the hose on the deck. 

"Houdini","Hey Dude", and "Hi Shoes"

Chloe's favorite quotes of this weekend

Levi and I made a run to the Vitamin Shoppe on Saturday evening. On our way home Miss Chloe was listening to us talking back and forth, joining in on our coversation here and there.  Apparently she heard me say "hey dude" (Levi's name might as well be dude to me).  Chloe babbles out a "hey dude".  Of course Levi and I start cracking up. We try to get her say it again and again and believe me she did, and hasn't stopped since.

We were almost home and Chloe was getting a little restless in her car seat.  She managed to get her arms out of the straps. Levi turned around to readjust the straps and said to Chloe "Hey you are no Houdini".  Chloe then says "Oodini".  We were laughing even harder than before now. For the rest of the night we were all  saying "Oodini" and "hey dude" with Chloe.  It was too funny. 

 Chloe is very interested in shoes and carries them all around, hiding them in cabinets and laundry baskets, which makes for a good time when you are trying to leave the house in a hurry and for some reason you can only find one lonely shoe.  Anyway, on Friday we were heading out to run some errands.  When I came around the corner holding Miss Chloe's little shoes, she said "hi shoes".  She likes to say "hi" to everyone and everything.  It is so cute.  She will almost be asleep with her eyes closed and she will lift her head up and say "hi" one last time before she slips off to sleep.

We don't call him Detail-Douger for nothing.

I went out to the back garage A.K.A Doug's Cabinet Factory and he had post-it-notes labeling each board   He is going "gangbusters" on the kitchen reno.  He has finished all the cabinet bases and is working on the drawers.  We had to have a small counseling session after the first corner cabinet (note to self: make sure unit will fit through door before assembling).  We had to remove both sliding glass doors to get the stupid thing in the house, and yes they have to be taken back out when it is time for the cabinet staining extravaganza. 

P.S. Doesn't Detail-Douger look soooo hot in his safety glasses?  "I'm too Sexy for my safety glasses, too sexy for my safety glasses, too sexy for my safety glasses, so sexy it hurts" 

You da Best

Reason #10,627 that Mom and Pop are da best:  they surprised us with the sinks for the new kitchen and bathroom. 

Thank you!!!

Kitchen Renovation has begun

My man is A-mazing!  Doug has been spending every extra minute after work and the weekends working on the kitchen cabinets. I can't believe how fast he is getting them done.  We brought the island in to see how it would fit. The next thing I knew, Doug was ripping out the carpet.  We decided to bring the rest of the cabinets in to make sure everything fit well.  It is so exciting to actually see it with our own eyes, rather than just dreaming of what it will look like.  Today Doug is working on the top cabinets and he expects to have them done this evening.  We will be taking everything back out of the room to put down wood floors, vault the ceiling, and how could I forget.... taking down the paneling YES!!!!!

The last two pictures are of Doug with his new beloved planer.  It was pretty hefty on the $$$ side, but he really wanted it, and needed it.  He has been planing until the wee hours every night.  Every time he planes, he comes in and gets me, so I can admire the beauty of each board with him :) 

The kid is a fish!

Chloe absolutely loves the pool.  She wakes up in the morning and the first thing out of her mouth is "pool".  We were on our way over to Mamaw and Pa's house the other day and Doug was talking to her about going swimming and she said "wimming Ma and Pa" (not swimming, wimming).  She walks right off the steps, goes under, and kicks her little legs as fast as she can.  She will stick her face down in the pool and pick up rocks and rings off the steps.  Miss Chloe knows that it is time to party when we go for a dip in the pool!

Another late night project

I made this for my friend Brook.  Doug took this photo when Lily was only 2 months old, and Miss Chloe was born 6 days later.  It is kind of hard to get a good picture of the detail, but I cut out all the butterflies, flowers, birds, etc and glued them in different layers to create dimension.  Anyway, I am pretty proud of it.