Final Touches

The kitchen was the last room to be finished in our condo renovation, but can you blame me?  It’s what I cared about the most.  I kind of felt like Carrie Bradshaw in the Sex in the City Movie when she was apartment hunting in Manhattan with Mr. Big, and all she was concerned about was having a nice closet.  I was the same way with my kitchen. I mean, having a nice closet is my dream too… but that’s for another time.  

I briefly glanced at all the other rooms, gave my approvals when needed, and called it a day. I poured all my attention into the place where I knew I’d be spending the majority of my time everyday. This is where I test recipes, film our cooking show, and feed people I love. This is literally the heart of our home.

We hand selected every single piece and detail in this room (as fast as we could), and tried to imagine what it would look like when it was all put together.

When we finally had working pipes and running water, I automatically felt more comfortable.  When the electrician came and gave us power, it was a joy to see our lights and appliances working.

Then the contractor put up the cabinetry that we picked up from Ikea.  For some reason, this sight made me the happiest of all.

Next, the counter tops were installed, and Joe and I brought in some goodies from Home Depot, like our faucet, and back splash.

And eventually, it turned into this…

When the newly installed carpet was vacuumed, and the walls were done being painted, we knew we could finally call this place our home.

We could start to imagine plopping our couch down in the corner, and sitting back watching TV.

And as much as I was excited about our kitchen, I was happy that our bathrooms were completed and working too.  Joe and I lugged in everything from the lights to the tiles on the floor.  It was cool to see it fit together.

And then we had to deal with the washer and dryer.  I was paranoid because they were already there in our unit, and hadn’t been used in years.  Our downstairs neighbor warned us there was flooding issues from this room in the past, so we had to make sure to get new hoses and check things out for ourselves.

We’re happy to report that we’ve been flood-free.

And then the final touches included things like replacing our old light fixtures with ones like these.

When the trash and construction equipment that used to engulf our entire living room and balcony finally got pushed to one little corner, we felt so accomplished.

One of the last things we had to take care of was fixing our garage opener.

Our place didn’t come with a remote, so we had to buy a new one and program it to work.

And then once we got it open, we began clearing out the remaining boxes and trash.  By the way, this is the first time we even have a garage.  It’s small and there’s no room for anything else except the car, but you don’t appreciate things until you’ve lived without them.

If you haven’t been following our condo renovation progress up to this point, you can look back at our demolition pics HERE, and our construction pics HERE.  I’m excited to reveal to you our “BEFORE” and “AFTER” comparison pictures next.  We hope you’ve been enjoying our cooking show filmed from my in law’s kitchen.  If you haven’t seen our last episode of Bits & Pieces filmed from there, you can watch it HERE.  From here on out, we’ll be filming from our OWN place, and I couldn’t be more excited to share that with you.  Thanks for coming along with us on this ride.