In an effort to speed things up a little bit, I had Benchmark Renovation come back last week to do a little more framing, and to install the last sliding door in the kitchen. It’s amazing what a difference the sliding glass door makes in the kitchen. It opens the whole room up, and really makes the old part of the house feel connected with the addition.
We also had them move the door into the kitchen over 18″ to better accommodate the new cabinetry. That pretty much finishes up any framing. Hopefully this week we will have the rough electrical done so that we can get it insulated next week. The little lady isn’t getting any less pregnant.

As the summer months approach it’s time to pack up some of our favorite treats, and go on a picnic. Here are a couple of things to get you started off on the right foot.

When it comes to efficiently carrying food in style, no one has it down quite like the Japanese. I remember the first time I saw someone at work whip out a bento box. My tupperware has never felt so inadequate. There are about a million styles to choose from, and all very affordable. This two tiered yellow flower bento will run you $10 from the Bento Obento Shop.

If you are more of a sandwich, chips, and juice box kinda guy, don’t worry, you can still picnic in style. The Mylarkey Lunch bag has got you covered. It’s big enough to fit your standard sandwich or leftovers, and it’s insulated so you don’t have to worry about your cold food getting hot. It’s vinyl and soft plastic free, so you don’t have to worry about any nasty offgassing while you enjoy nature. It’s available from Cascadelemonade’s Etsy shop for $15.

If you are going a little more upscale than a tuna fish sandwich on white bread, make sure you check out the Oenophilia Picnic Stake Set. It make it easy to balance a bottle of your drink of choice and some nice glasses with out needing a table. Made of steel with a zinc finish, these should hold up to many romantic outdoor adventures. Available from Target for $19.

Of course no picnic is complete without a blanket to lay on. Any old one will do, but if you are looking for something full featured to dedicate to picnics, Target has got your back. The Tiny Traveler Picnic Blanket is made of a soft fabric with a protective waterproof layer to keep the dew away. It also fold into it’s own little carrying case complete with handle to make your life a little easier. Available from Target for $19.

OK, I think I found a winner for some outdoor LED lighting. It’s called the NSL LED MiniDisc Light and is available from Brandlighting. They are small, simple, and best of all affordable. They even come in an aluminum finish so they will match all of our windows. Pricing is $40 per light, and $100 for the driver. One driver can power up to 100 lights.

MIDNATT from Ikea shown to the right. It’s not anything to special, but it’s only $25. When you need to buy 6 of something, the price difference between $25 and $100 is a big deal. These will mount near the tops of all the birch cabinetry, and will basically run the whole length of the hall. Does anyone else have any good suggestions?

LED Available from Brandlighting from $40 - $100.

Sconce Available from Ikea for $25.

LG has always been one of my favorite appliance companies. They are able to think outside the box, and incorporate good clean design. Lately my wife and I have been thinking about getting a toaster. We have a toaster oven, which we like, but it is such a pain to drag it out just to make some toast. We would leave it out on the counter, but in a small kitchen, counter space is precious. Someone must have been thinking about the same problem when they designed this microwave/toaster combo at LG. They also have a model that combines a coffee pot and a microwave in the same way.

Available from AJ Madison for $150

Up until this point, the kitchen has been the only room that we have not started tearing down walls in. Thats about to change. Our original design for our house showed a sliding door from the kitchen to the courtyard as well as one from the master bedroom to the courtyard. Knowing that putting a 8′ wide door in our kitchen right where our sink was would cost some money, we initially decided to wait until later to tackle that project. Luckily, on a last minute whim, I decided to order the kitchen slider when I ordered the rest of the windows. This essentially forces us to do a complete kitchen remodel. Saturday I ripped out the sink and about 8′ of cabinetry that was where the slider would be. I even managed to get our sink and dishwasher plumbed in its new location. The wall you see in the picture above will basically become one huge window, and all our cabinetry will flip to the opposite walls. Now all we have to do is put in new flooring, all new cabinets and appliances, move light switches and outlets, patch drywall and paint. Sounds easy enough.

Read more

I am looking for some good outdoor wall mounted LED lighting, something similar to what is shown in this picture. They will be placed every 8 feet or so along the outside of the house to light the courtyard. The one shown here is from a UK store, and I would really prefer something stateside. I know that there must be some good ones out there. Do you guys have any good ideas? As usual, affordable would be nice!

While I had my Dad’s help over the weekend, we went ahead and installed the sliding glass door in our bedroom as well. It took us a couple of tries to get it in the right way, but once we figured it out, it was really pretty easy to put in. It looks absolutely amazing. It’s great to see all those windows in our room and all the great natural light that it lets in. Next on the list of things to do is install a slider opposite of this one in our kitchen of our existing house. That should really help to tie everything together well. In lieu of time, I will be having Benchmark Renovation do that install, since it will involve demoing a wall and installing a new header for the slider. That should all be done this week, as well as most of the rough electrical, which I have been slowly doing over the last week or two.

Our back door came in last Friday. We picked it up from Quality Door 15 minutes before they closed. Just before they started to load it onto our car, I noticed that the sticking (the part right next to the window) was not square like I ordered, it was an ogee edge. Not quite what I had in mind, but they said the only thing they could do is build a new door, and I don’t have another 5 weeks. All in all I am very happy with it though, it has a nice look, and was barely over $600 pre hung. The hard maple is beautiful and will match the baltic birch in the hallway perfect. My dad came up on Saturday, and we had it hung in about an hour.

I had been looking everywhere for affordable modern door handles. I was starting to think I wouldn’t be able to find a simple stainless steel locking lever. Saturday morning I was picking up a few things from Home Depot, and I found a Schlage medium duty commercial entry door lever. It was simple, and only $60. Installation was a breeze, and I think it looks great. Nothing fancy, but nice.

Pics after the jump.

Read more

This is old news to most of us locals, but still good news. The much awaited Ikea Draper (15 minutes from our house) finally has an opening date, and it is just four days before our baby is due. We plan on getting all of our kitchen cabinetry from Ikea. I would love to make it all, but time doesn’t allow. Looks like it might not get done until after the baby is born. Here is the official news release:

Air out your camping gear! Customers can begin lining up at IKEA Draper at 8:00 am on Monday morning, May 21, 2007 - in advance of our May 23rd opening. We are going to be doing something special for everyone on opening morning so you do not have to be the first, second, or third customer in line* in order to share in the fun. Keep checking the IKEA Draper page for updates!

It’s been a while since I have posted anything about Curbly, but rest assured the community is still thriving over there. Good ideas keep rolling in like this Ikea hack from lilybee. After drooling over Iannone Sanderson’s Signature 2.0 Console and realizing that she would have to rob a bank to be able to afford it, she decided to get a little creative. Starting with an Ikea Lack table and adding some artistic wood effect contact paper, she was able to get the same effect for a lot less.

See the whole post at Curbly