Saturday, May 15, 2010

Shuttle Atlantis

I watched the Atlantis lift off from the parking lot at Lowe's. I was trying to finish purchasing all of the lights. I set a reminder on my phone and in the middle of a conversation with the very kind man who was helping me when it went off, so I abandoned my cart and ran out to see it!

Shuttle off safely, I continued my lights shopping. We are using xenon for the under-and-over-counter lighting and it takes quite a lot of lights. They did not have enough at this particular Lowe's, so I had to go to another one to finish the purchase. I spent so much money at both Lowes that AMEX thought someone had stolen my card. When I got home, I had a call from the security department wanting to verify that the charges were mine. LOL. Sadly, they were!

Saturday, May 8, 2010

Shutter me Timbers

Okay - I couldn't help myself with the title. Here is the front as it currently stands. The shutters were installed yesterday, and once they are painted dark green they will look much better.

Note the garage door has finally been installed. I was out of town when I heard that news and I asked the Guy to be sure and have the installer program our cars to open it. After a pause, he suggested that it might be helpful to have electricity to do that. And then he had a good laugh. I'm glad I can still amuse.....(albeit unintentionally).

Everybody Must Get Stoned!

Now that I have Bob Dylan's song firmly planted in my head, I'm sure I will be singing it to myself all weekend! I thought it was a fitting description for our front entry. They are not yet finished, but I wanted to go ahead and share it with everyone. They told me they would be "finito" today, but since it is past noon on a Saturday and they are nowhere to be seen, I seriously doubt it. Regardless, we love the stone! We selected it in a vacuum without the benefit of the slate to see if they matched, but fortunately they do work together quite nicely, thank you very much! We plan on having plants in the boxes between the columns. Yes, I know I do not have much of a green thumb, but there are some plants that grow like crazy here, so we will use one of those types which are idiot proof.


Here is the entry to the door. It's going to look a bit tight, but them's the breaks! It still will look great.


Monday, May 3, 2010

Teaching Scruffy to Fly

When I was leaving the house this morning after photographing the kitchen, I heard the Osprey overhead chattering very loudly. I looked up to see all three of them (two adults and one baby) flying around in circles. The adults were teaching the baby, Scruffy, to fly! Very cool. I was able to capture some images, but they were pretty high up and I did not have my long lens. That means the photos below are not as sharp as I would like, but heck - at least I captured them. It's pretty early for the babies to be flying. The Osprey usually hang around until after 4th of July, but I have a feeling that they may be gone quite a bit earlier than that this year. Too bad. I hope they are still around a little while after we move back in.



This is the Osprey dive position. They weren't actually going into the water - just practicing. Really cool!



We're Cooking Now!

They're baaaaack! Many of you are familiar with our beautiful and very old copper Chambers ovens. They're 60 this year. Well, they are installed and I had the opportunity to polish them this weekend, so they are back to their former glory. I'm happy to see my old friends ready to cook again! Of course, they need a bit of tuning up as they have been sitting in storage for 5 years.....but that should not present a problem.


And here are our other old friends - the cabinets. We are able to use all of our cabinet pieces except for one base from the original peninsula. Not all will be in the kitchen as the rooms are vastly different in configuration and size, but it is really gratifying that we can use them. The best part is that the Texas and Florida kitchens are really different, but the pieces and parts work well in both of them. When everything is totally completed, I'll show you both rooms so you can compare.




Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Moving Day (It's not what you think)

I have mentioned a few times that we are "camping" at our house across the street. Well, the day finally came over the weekend to move the kitchen cabinets to the "new" house so they could be installed this week. Here is a view of the living room packed to the rafters with cabinets, lumber, appliances (how did the dishwasher get on top of the cabinets?) and empty wine boxes (don't ask).


This is the granite and a few pieces of marble from table tops (those tables sure did look terrible without the marble, but we lived with them over 4 years).


Here is our California Closet system laid out in the bedroom.

The first cabinet in it's new home! Yea!

We rolled out the green carpet for the moving guys! (it's to help get the dirt off their shoes). That's it for our landscaping budget!!


Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Web Footed Friends

The rain we had last night created a small canal in the front of the yard, so we had some local friends stop by for a bit of a bath and snack. (don't worry - we are all organic, so no toxic pesticides are in the ditch)



They weren't deterred at all by the guy with the jackhammer in the background.

What great orange feet! Very stylish if you are from Tennessee (thankfully, the Gators have orange as well, so no problem).