garden border installed

Scott and I installed edging where our sloped front and side yards fall on the sidewalk. Although we would some day love to install a stone wall, for now we're using a cheap & easy eight-foot treated boards and Frame It All landscape edging kits from Home Depot.

While installing the edging, we discovered parts of our front lawn had taken over as much as a foot of the sidewalk. Scott even unknowingly managed to grow some of his plants in just six-inches of soil on top of the sidewalk.

Several people passing-by and neighbors complimented us on our yard. Someone even described the edging as a picture frame around a painting.

Kitchen cabinets: Phase Two

We reluctantly resumed our kitchen remodel. We've enjoyed are new sink, counter top, dishwasher, and cabinets so much that we haven't been motivated to install the two cabinets above the refrigerator and stove.

Here is the elaborate plan I drafted to show the electrician where we needed the plug:

Fortunately, we had the electrician install the microwave/hood plug at the same time he did the counter top plug. It's not pretty, but I'm glad he did this:

Here is the wallboard. This is actually my first attempt. However, the wall board was too thick and I had to take this down. Unlike the other wall in which the plaster was much thicker than the drywall, on this wall the plaster seemed thinner (or maybe the wallboard I used this time was thicker than what we used on the other wall???). So, I removed this wallboard and cut the lathe and then reinstalled the wallboard. Very messy.

Here is joint compound which I glopped on. Fortunately, this will be hidden behind the cabinets, so we didn't feel the need for it to look perfect.:

Here is where we left off until next weekend:

We'll assemble the cabinets this week. However, before we hang the cabinets on the wall, we'll need to figure out the venting. I'm still researching code and the installation manual, but we plan on running four-inch duct through the two cabinets and out the side of the house. We were tempted to avoid the venting issue use a ventless hood filter like our old apartment, but those vent-less filters don't work well.