Of mice and men

No, we don't have mice at the Little Beach House!  However, I'm sure we can't be the first people to take on a house renovation and think of that famous line "the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry."  Where I thought we'd be by now vs. where we actually are in this process are two different places. Remember, we're over six hours away and only get to work on the house a couple of weekends each month.  Nevertheless, I thought it was time for an update.

Sure, it's possible that I might sometimes overestimate what we can get done in our short weekend visits.  I prefer to think of myself as optimistic -- it sounds better than naive or unrealistic.  However, when I started writing this, I took a look back at the last post and laughed out loud when I got to the line about having the kitchen operational by mid-February. Ha! We have made good progress on the kitchen, but here's what it looks like right now:

and here are all the appliances and cabinets, sitting in the dining room a few feet away:

So close, yet so far! 

Also, for weeks we've also been sooo close to having the new laundry area finished. The travertine flooring in the bathroom looks fantastic: 

. . . and the water hookups and electrical lines are ready to go:

but when we placed the dryer on top of the washer and opened the stacking kit brackets made specifically by Whirlpool for the Duet series we had purchased, here's what we found:

Okay, so you see those two holes on the bracket that is hooked onto the dryer? and can you see the two holes below it in the back of the washer (partially covered by the bracket)?  Well, that distance is about a half-inch apart. Grrrr!  We considered drilling our own new holes to match, but after researching further we found that our newer model of the Duet washer & dryer uses straight brackets (these are "z" shaped) and the correct ones will allow the dryer to be better positioned over the washer (and less likely to dance around when in use.)  So we had to order the correct new stacking kit and hopefully we can finish up that part of bathroom project during our next visit . . . and maybe even get the new toilet & vanity installed soon after that. 

We now have a real deadline for these two projects: Spring Break.   By the time we bring all five of the kids for a long weekend, we need to have that second bathroom and the kitchen finished.

I would love to have the great room in shape by then, too. It's really just a lot of little things holding us up there.  For example, the cable line currently comes up through the floor for some reason(?!) and needs to be moved to the wall before we can put down the new flooring. Small project that Steve can definitely handle, but so far has not been a high a priority. Also, when we say we're renovating everything, we mean everything.  Even the light switches are being swapped out with new ones. Why? Because salt air does this:

Ewww! right?

When we are finished with this place, it's going to be good as make that better than new. It's just going to take time (more time than I would like) and hopefully not too many detours along the way. Cross your fingers!