Tidy Brown Wren, bringing order to your nest

  Whew!  I finally have a chance to post an update on our kitchen remodeling project.    There is lots of wood and dust, nails and screws, bricks and sand.    Here is a view into the kitchen from the "keeping room" area in front of the fireplace.  We have an open concept house, so it's hard to describe.  To the right, through the doorway, is our utility room.  The large plaid object to the right is our stove covered with a blanket.    The ceiling is bead board and the walls are being prepped for board and batten.   Here is the same view after the painters came and after Hubs and I removed the brick flooring.  This view was taken from the doorway to the utility room.  Notice the new beams and the board and batten siding.  The old walls and ceiling had been sprayed with popcorn ceiling texture - I'm not kidding - yes, in a kitchen.  Every morning I came down to ...

What's one to do when your kitchen is torn up and it's time to feed hungry grandfellas their lunch?    Just heat it up in the microwave - as it sits outside on the porch floor.      Yum, yum. . . I'm just glad there is an outlet on the porch!  And the weather was warm and sunny.   *Many of you who know me know that I don't really like using a microwave oven.  It's true.  I don't.  I'm making an exception in these coming weeks while things get put back together in our kitchen.  Here's why I think microwave ovens are not good for regular use.   Last night I actually took a premade lasagna that I froze a month ago to my daughter's house to cook it in her oven while I babysat the grandlittles.  I have several more freezer meals ready to heat up in my crock pot or electric saucepan .

  Ah, nothing like a little dust and debris to make a dull winter interesting.  We've begun the kitchen remodel and my kitchen no longer looks like this. . .   Wondering how I got that cool shot?  Well I have a handy-dandy window that looks down into my kitchen from my bedroom.  How cool is that?  Not!  We're taking it out and boarding up the wall on both sides.     We had a sliding patio door that entered right into the kitchen.  In fact, I could not open my oven door all the way because the door trim was in the way.   We're putting a window in it's place so that we can have more cabinets and counter space.  The oven will move to where the fridge is now (or where it was last week).  Our contractor had to widen the opening and frame up the bottom part to make room for the new window.   The old window above the kitchen sink was not too bad, but Hubs (the master dishwasher and pa...