Cabinets and Trim Installed

May 8 - It has arrived!  We were finally able to visit again and, man, was it worth it! We saw so much work being done in the neighborhood.  This was the busiest that we have seen our little street since this all began.  There were trucks at every house.  There were loaders, dump trucks, and guys with shovels all down the street.  

This is an approximate rendering of what our neighborhood looked like this morning.  Not sure that we captured all of the chaos or not.

Once we moved beyond the construction worker that said "You shall not pass!" (That one's for you LOTR fans) we arrived at the house.  We found a van filled with insulation with giant orange tubes coming out of the side and up the front of our house.  We were definitely intrigued.  Angela asked one of the workers if it would be okay to enter the house and he said "Ummmmm.....sure, perhaps, maybe, I'm not sure.  Yeah, go ahead.  Why not?"  Good enough for us.

Hmmmmm...sure go right on in.

We started to enter and then saw everything that was happening.  There were workers everywhere and they were getting all of the drywall smoothed out.  Very smartly, they were wearing masks.  No masks for us.  So, Angela stayed outside with our son and Bryan ventured inside.  He was welcomed with many confused looks from the 10 workers that were crawling all over the house, but behold the pictures he captured:

And the giant tape worm enters the home.

The first car to park in our driveway and it's not ours!  May the giant tape worm eat it!

10 men enter, one man leave.

A look out of the reading room window.

Stair rail installed, but not stained.

Up the stairs.  Look at that lovely rail!

A look down the hallway.

The kids' bath is not all that exciting...yet.

Their sink is installed.  Blue glove not included.

A look into the master bedroom.

Master bath shower - not much yet, but hey, we're tracking progress.

A look down into the tub.  Notice all of the dust.  Perhaps those workers were right to cough wear masks.

There is our lovely sink and cabinets for the master bath.

Bryan was able to snap a picture of the neighborhood from the master closet.  Look at all of that construction.  Angela and our son wave hello from down below.

Why not take a trip down to the basement you say?

Alright, since you asked.  There is our neat little ledge in the stairwell.

Down to the basement we go.  Imagine two different songs blasting at the same time.  One upstairs and the other down.  That is what Bryan waded through on this adventure.

There is a look into the basement bathroom.

Okay, so the office is still dark.  That's okay.  It will have some lights sometime soon.

Here is a look at the basement wall.  We noticed the ding in the top of the photo.

There were two mysterious ones on this wall.  We are sure that it will be fixed.  They were circled in pencil.

We decided to save the best pictures for last.  It is treat for those of you who have read this long.  It is our version of those little scenes that follow all of the credits of a movie or one of those "hidden" songs that you find on an album after forgetting that you left your mp3 player on.  Here you go:

Our cabinet that will be above the refrigerator.  We made sure that it would be pushed out.  That was really helpful advice that we found from another blogger.   

Look at all of those great cabinets and counters.  The hard hat, not so much.

Wow!!!!!!!!  They drink Dr. Pepper?  Our daughter said "Dr. Pepper?  Is that standard?  It's probably an upgrade."  Ha!  Look at that island and the double sink!!

Finally, the fireplace!  Ahhhh!  Almost there!

Bryan exited the house with a giant smile on his face and shared the pictures with the family.  We were all so very excited to see how everything is coming together.  So exciting!!!!

We did e-mail Drew, our project manager, with one question.  We were wondering about the placement of the microwave outlet.  This was two-fold.  First, we read on another blog that the electricians had forgotten to install the plug.  The second reason was that we read on Venice Evolution about how they installed rope lights above the cabinets and used the microwave plug.  We wanted to be sure how to access it just in case we decided we wanted to give this a try.

Drew told us that the outlet is inside the cabinet.  He even sent us a picture:

Who knows what outlets lurk inside of the cabinet?  The Shadow knows.

Finally, we gave some local faire a try for breakfast.  We tried an apparent local staple called the Battlefield Restaurant.  It had large portions for a low price and it really gave us an opportunity to meet the locals.  Our advice, always go to a greasy spoon for the best breakfast and to meet the locals.  You will never go wrong!

It hits the spot for sure!

It also gave us a chance to see the actual Fredericksburg Battlefield.  It looks very interesting and we are certain that we will be visiting there soon enough!

Next up: An update on what to expect next from our project manager.