We got our granite on Friday. It's gorgeous. Here's the island with the sink:

This is the stove area:

Another island/sink view:

And the fireplace. We chose a darker granite, because I thought using the light here would be too much.

The kitchen is still in sort of the same state; but more cabinets are up, along with the crown molding. The bathroom upstairs now has a bathtub and soon will have the tile. We had to go pick out more tile for the entryway as the original that we had chosen was discontinued. Unfortunately, I brought the wrong camera upstairs so the photos of the kitchen and bath will have to wait. The camera I brought is the one I use for closeups of my beads, so instead of showing you the kitchen, I'm going to show you my knobs.

Since the stuff got moved out of the garage on Monday, I've been able to do a little work and start on my knob project. I'm making the knobs for this renovation. I picked out funky light fixtures and I'm making knobs to "go with" them. I'm not "matching" them, rather "going with" them.

Here are the knobs in the downstairs powder room. The lighting glass is a fritted light with topaz and black. I needed only 5 knobs for this room so I started here.


And a close up:


And here's the style I'm making for the laundry room. No cool lighting fixtures in there, so I could make what I wanted. I need 12 for this room.

Time for more kitchen pictures, to show the progress so far. We have cabinets! They are beautiful.

This first picture corresponds to the first picture I posted on the July 13th entry. We are looking at the brick wall (now covered up) and the sliding glass door (replaced).

This next picture corresponds to the second picture I posted on July 13. We are looking at the newly expanded dining room entryway on the left, and the doorway to the side door and garage door and the laundry room. You can see the new island where the sink and the dishwasher will be and straight ahead along the wall will be the new fridge and new oven and microwave.

This next picture is the same area as the 3rd picture on July 13, but it shows a different angle. On the left where there was bare wall is now a coat closet and folding area for laundry and across from that are my washer & dryer with actual cabinets above them! I had that stupid shelf system from the previous owner of the house there before. Yay, cabinets!


This next one shows the bathroom upstairs. We have walls!


And here's the shower:


And the vanity:


We are also taking the opportunity to change some of the windows, to let in more light. This house can be so dark, especially on a rainy day. Here's the new dining room window from the inside:


And from the outside:


And here is a picture of the old living room windows. This is a picture of the opposite side of the room, but the window placement was the same. Small windows before:


Big window after!:


And here's why I haven't been making beads. Last week it was the cabinets; this week it's the bathtub:

Obviously, things aren't finished, but they are coming along nicely. We're pretty pleased with the progress so far.

Well, I'm back at home and things are progressing nicely. Today there were a ton of people here, painters, contractors, installers. All over the place. I'm relegated to the basement with the dogs, where it's cool, so that's OK. The new window in the living room is incredible. I should take some pictures. Maybe later when they're gone.

Oh, it's been a while since I posted anything but I've been having much fun. At least since I left the mess back home. On Wednesday I flew to Minneapolis to go to the ISGB Gathering, the annual convention of beadmakers. It was a ton of fun. I did a whole bunch of glass and tool shopping as well as bead shopping at the Bead Bazaar. It was a perfect weekend, except we didn't get enough sleep.

On Monday, Robert and I both flew to Chicago and spent 2 nights there. We went to the Field Museum of Natural History, the Chicago Art Institute and Second City Comedy Show. We stayed at the Westin on Michigan Ave. It was very nice.

Right now we're in Naperville. My class starts tomorrow. Robert is going to go to the Museum of Science and Industry while I'm in class. Then tomorrow night, we're getting together with our Boston Terrier Friends. I got to meet them in person last year; Robert will be meeting them for the first time. We've been friends for over 7 years on-line. I started visiting the AOL BT Board just after we got Java and that's how we met.

So that's the update. Apparently at home, all the plastering and drywalling is done. The new window in the living room went in today and the new sliding glass door went in yesterday. I can't wait to get home and see it.