the kitchen takes shape

I literally spent 2 hours yesterday designing our kitchen with the lovely Home Depot designers. I think I might have driven him a little crazy, but the truth is, I was trying desperately to make a very small space VERY functional. So just when he thought I had settled on a cabinet style I changed my mind and we were back to square one. I tried to charm him with my bubbly personality to make up for all of my switcheroos, but that only goes so far...

But in the meantime Ben was busy in the kitchen this weekend filling in the odd doorway that once served as a second entrance to the bedroom. I originally posted about it here.

Here's a review in pictures:

Ben removing the door frame

view from the kitchen side

Of course it wasn't as simple as just hanging sheetrock- Ben had to also cut and install a stud, but he did that when there weren't any cameras around to document his every move (aka I was in Manhattan).

And the end result:

view from the kitchen side

view from the bedroom side

You can see the stud on the picture above from the bedroom side.

He hung 3/8" sheetrock on the kitchen side but the bedroom side is still visible.. that's a project for another day. We were both eager to get the kitchen blocked in to help keep the dog on lock down- he's been quit the troublemaker lately..

prepping the kitchen

I'm in the process of designing the kitchen (more to come later), but in the meantime some adjustments had to be made in the space in order for my design to work. The biggest issue? The extra door into the bedroom (and right smack in the middle of my "U" shaped design).

Below is a rough floor plan of the house so you can see what I'm talking about..

(not to scale)

The bedroom to the top right has two door openings, one coming through the hall and one through the kitchen. In an effort to make both rooms more useable (at the moment the bedroom has very few furniture walls because of the doors and windows), we knew we needed to close off the extra doorway.

You can kind of see the actual door orientation through the picture below..
On Saturday Ben started hacking away at the existing door frame. He didn't get very far in terms of filling in the wall and installing studs- by the time the frame was out we took a dinner break. But he says the few more steps he needs to take aren't too involved- he keeps saying he knows what he's doing..
Apparently there was also a panel on the kitchen wall I had never really noticed before. You can see all of the left over adhesive on the wall.

I hope Ben will take pictures as he continues to work on it.

On Saturday Ben will officially become a Saratoga resident. He's starting a new job next week and I, unfortunately, am going to be living the life of a single New Yorker until all of my business is wrapped up. I'll join him here and there, as I can, and he'll be back in the Manhattan area most weekends. But until our boxes are packed and the truck arrives, I'll be sleeping on a bed in a very well furnished apartment, eating dinner made out of our All Clad pots and pans and he will be resting on an air mattress, watching tv on the floor and eating cheap take out most nights. And did I mention doing hard labor after work to finish up the house before I arrive?