Night #4: Demo complete. Could it be?

It is now Day 5. We are totally sore and tired. Last night we finished tear out. Yesterday I had to work at home to wait for the cabinets and appliances to be delivered. I decided I couldn't focus knowing there was work to be done in the kitchen so I took most of the day off to paint the dining room ceiling, some beams, and begin priming. I only painted 1 thing that I wasn't supposed to. It's going to be fine, I have a plan. I have to say though, I am less than impressed with Lowe's Valspar ceiling paint. Hopefully the wall paint is a different story.

Gutted!

It's very echoey in here now.

It wasn't so easy to move the fridge, this is as far as we could take it...

Notice my handy work on the ceiling and the beams? No more throw backs to the 60's.

Tonight we will paint all of the walls. Tomorrow Uncle Sean and Jeremy (right brother?) are coming and we're going to install!

Night #3: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger

We knew we would have some challenges last night. Two of the hardest pieces to remove: the cabinet with the stove top in it and the cabinet with the oven in it. We had to first turn off the gas to each. Turns out, in 1964 they didn't put levers on the shut offs so instead you have to use all of your might on a little nubbin and try to get it perpendicular. Okay, so we figured that part out. I guess since all of the pipes have been screwed together for 40+ years they don't want to be separated, ever. We had to get crafty. To save any of you from worrying I won't go into full details but let's just say we got the appliances out and we didn't blow up our home or even get light headed.

Recall what we started with. You can see the oven in the back left corner and the stove top in the front right corner.

GONE!

More progress

Rust orange wall oven is no longer.

In case you are curious. Tappan wall ovens from the 60's are HEAVY! Josh was proud of me that I was able to help him lift it. I'm glowing with personal satisfaction. Now that we have the appliances out, the remainder of the cabinets should be pretty easy. We'll need to be patient with the upper cabinet that has the hood attached. There is some electrical there and we'll have a big hole in the ceiling where it vents into the attic. Haven't figured that one out just yet, might wait for Uncle Sean. And by the way Sean, our workspace is very clean, I do in fact vacuum with the shop vac and my regular vacuums every night when we are done. I also dispose of any waste we created.

I grew up doing projects with my mom, can you tell?

Night #2: Starting to get a little gross

What kind of glue did they use in the 1960's

Sink removed, counter top off,  2 base cabinets gone

If you don't ever plan to remove your kitchen cabinets, do yourself a favor and don't think about what is under there. Gross.

Getting a little closer

The hardest part of last night was removing the cast iron sink. It fell through the hole which made lifting it a challenge. We are being very patient and after some trial and error decided to take the counter off to get it out. It may not look like much progress, but I tell you, this is a lot of work! We've put in about 5 hours on demo now because we just have the evenings.

I suppose I should admit that Josh had been working for a while to disconnect the pipes from the sink and remove the disposal. I walked up and poured my water down the drain. Which means I poured my water through a hole onto the floor. Good job.

The Kitchen: Before pics and night 1 progress

Before

Before

Before

Doors removed, 2 upper cabinets GONE!

Exposing the lovely mint green paint

We have a long way to go people.

Monkey Bread "Lite"

We need to face reality, rarely do you find a recipe that is just like the real thing when there is "lite" in the name. If you are a monkey bread fan who does not care about calories then move on to your next activity, there's nothing for you here. If you are a fan of most sweet things but are trying to watch calories, sugar, fat, etc you might be interested in this recipe. Josh actually found this blog site and sent it on to me. I think the author's husband is in a similar field as Josh and he found him on a site they both use.  Anyway, I love Dashing Dish's philosophy and really appreciate her work to make healthier alternatives to the favorites. You might see some other recipes taken from her site in the future.  There are two great things I like about this recipe. The first is that the portions are made individual sizes so you know exactly how much to take for a serving. Second is that it is made with alternatives and did not require many "fancy" ingredients that I don't know where to immediately find at Meijer.
Visit Dashing Dish to find the Monkey Bread Lite recipe.

This photo is from DashingDish.com (I didn't have time to snap my own, we were headed out the door for a family get together).

I made this to bring to Easter with the family. I warned everybody I had not made this before and that it was a lighter alternative to the real thing. They were a hit (thankfully)! I recommend making extra of the syrup/butter sauce because I ran out about half way through my tray of 12. The sugar free maple syrup I used was pretty runny, I think a thicker syrup would help this recipe as well. Definitely going in the cook book to use in the future!

Chicken Marsala

I feel like I haven't had much time to blog lately with all the travel. While I was on my trip to Reno I went out to eat in Truckee, CA with some colleagues. It is a very cute little western town. We ate at a great restaurant that unfortunately I cannot remember the name of. This was our first meal in 3 days that didn't consist of appetizers, finger foods, hotel coffee, or Starbucks oatmeal so everything on the menu looked good. I needed advice. I asked the waitress if she were hypothetically from out of town and may never have the opportunity to come back and eat here again what she might order.  Chicken Marsala was on her list. Coincidentally it was in my top 3 choices so I went with it.  Excellent decision, it was so very good.  I've been craving it every day since so I decided to look up the recipe online.  I trust allrecipes.com so I went with this one:

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour for coating
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
• 4 skinless, boneless chicken breast halves - pounded 1/4 inch thick
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 1/2 cup Marsala wine
• 1/4 cup cooking sherry

Directions

1. In a shallow dish or bowl, mix together the flour, salt, pepper and oregano. Coat chicken pieces in flour mixture.
2. In a large skillet, melt butter in oil over medium heat. Place chicken in the pan, and lightly brown. Turn over chicken pieces, and add mushrooms. Pour in wine and sherry. Cover skillet; simmer chicken 10 minutes, turning once, until no longer pink and juices run clear.

Nutritional Information

Amount Per Serving  Calories: 448 | Total Fat: 26.6g | Cholesterol: 99mg

I would give this recipe a A- for taste and an A+ for prep time. We're talking 15 minutes to a delicious meal. I paired it with angel hair pasta and a glass of Little Black Dress pinot grigio.

I have a lot of leftovers too!

Now as for my trip to Reno. Well... whatever image you have in your head of Reno, it is probably true. It lived up to every expectation that I had before I left.  Here is a picture of my hotel room:

But here is me at Lake Tahoe!

And here is me not getting run over by cars while standing in the middle of the main street in Reno to get my picture taken:

I'm so glad to be home.

The Kitchen Remodel

We're doing it! 2011 is the year of the kitchen remodel. We plan to start demo the first week of May. You haven't seen many pictures of my cabinets or counter tops because I'm not proud. Here is our current situation:

I didn't remove the clutter because there is always clutter due to lack of cabinets and no dishwasher. And that little guy standing in the middle, he gets to stay. Compare to picture #1 below.

Orange appliances = awesome. Compare to picture #2 below.

We will take everything out and the new layout will look something like this:

Picture #1

Picture #2

The cabinets will look something like this:

We'll add a few appliances that look like this:

And some counter tops that look like this (sort of):

We'll do most of the work ourselves with the help of Uncle Sean. I can't wait to get started!