.: blog :.

Reflection, originally uploaded by aawaken.

I was sitting at my dining room table doing some work and noticed a neat reflection in the glass tabletop and in the iPhone. I played around with the focus and thought this photo turned out well.

I haven’t posted recently on our progress in our kitchen remodeling because, well, there hasn’t been a lot of progress since last August! But things do look more “done” since my last kitchen post, so I’ll post some photos here. Most notably, the breakfast nook is mostly done and furnished. We also have a wonderful pantry in the main kitchen area, with much thanks to my father-in-law! See the pics below.

I took a photography class this semester (first mini), which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was the source of an earlier post about shooting in the studio. However, it wasn’t a typical class that teaches how to photograph, but rather taught about the power and nuance of photography. I’m assuming most people use a camera, but have you ever thought about how you see the world through the camera lens? Do you see things differently? Or perhaps you’d tend to think that it’s helpful but reduces the complexity and beauty of the real world to a small 2-dimensional “snapshot”.

Reflection off a kitchen drawer pull

But what makes certain photographs so powerful? Why do companies spend big dollars trying to catch your eye with their photography and other visuals? We are indeed visual people (I certainly am!), so images can be very compelling. I took photographs of reflections around my house for an assignment and thought they’re worth sharing. For me, it was interesting to look at the everyday in a whole new way. (Maybe I’ll take up poetry next semester…)

(Funny side notes… Can you tell what time it is in the bathroom? Did you notice the shark in the last photo? Did you see what was the reflection and what wasn’t being reflected in the nursery photo?)

Recently, we worked to turn our second floor office into a family room. This was still going to be *my* room to design, just now new and improved, and with more floor space (to play with Ian) after the removal of the giant desk and a closet. Initially, a new entertainment stand would hold all of my old electronics: My PC and monitor from college, used stereo from my dad, $10 speakers from my brother, spare DVD player from my friend Josh, etc. But eventually I’d get our first TV and surround sound system, and upgrade the computer. (If you can’t tell, TV is low priority in our house.) But besides being home to all my fun electronics, the room must also have a decidedly manly decor.

Sooo…. I put up new drywall where the closet used to be, found some great paint colors and carpet, rearranged the room, and hung some B&W photography on the walls. What a huge difference! Our dog sleeps on the couch in the room, so she enjoys it too, seen here relaxing on the new carpet.

With the incredible help of family and friends, we now have a functioning kitchen! My wonderful wife has waited some time for this. Our Ikea cabinets are working out very well for us and were quite simple to install. It’s fun to finally see our dreaming and planning come together!

While we have everything in place and functioning, we also have a lot of loose ends to finish up and the back room to work on. My mother in law referred to that room as the “green room” (we’re going to paint it green) and though I don’t think I like that name as much as the “breakfast nook” or “breakfast area”, it is certainly easier to say. We’ll see what sticks.

PS- Take note of our unique garbage disposal system in the picture above.

My wife has amazing patience. With our baby a week overdue and our kitchen even moreso, she is still cool, calm, and waiting for closure to her pregnancy and her messy house. We know that the baby is doing well and will arrive on its own schedule. As for the kitchen, friends and I have been making good progress. We have all the drywall hung, mud going up, and yesterday I bought our paint. The kitchen will be Roasted Pepper red and the breakfast nook will be Corn Husk Green.  Sounds yummy!

We’ve kept very active lately, preparing for our little Jack or Jane to arrive. Unfortunately, the baby-delivering stork (does the stork have a name?) does not keep a strict schedule. Perhaps we should have gone with UPS. Anyhow, joking aside, we’re busy “nesting” by getting the house (and car) ready for our baby’s arrival. We already have the car seat installed and inspected, ready to take junior home from the hospital, and Erica’s bags are packed!

For her part, besides the obvious hard work she has carrying a baby around and working full-time, Erica has been washing baby clothes, cutting tags off of baby shower gifts, previewing baby music, and getting the nursery in order. The nursery is very cute, functional, and simple at the same time (click the photo to see it larger). There is even a little closet in the room that’s perfect for hanging little baby clothes. The room is obviously pink (”bridal rose” to be exact), but we had painted it last summer and will do our best to make it as manly as possible if the stork brings Jack rather than Jane.

While the nursery is in mint condition, the kitchen isn’t quite there yet. Aaron’s been working hard, and with a little more work it can soon be functional. All of the utilities are complete, the original hardwood floors are looking georgous, appliances have been delivered, and drywall should start going up this weekend. Hopefully he’ll be able to recruit some help when the grandparents visit, between everyone’s caring for Erica and doting over the little one!

As a brief distraction from our ongoing kitchen remodeling project, we did some landscaping last month. Our front yard is almost entirely a steep hill that was tough to mow and had an ugly hodge-podge of grass-like plants growing on it. So our first step was to get rid of the old grass. We opted to rip it out rather than covering it and letting it wither away. It took more work, but we had good help to get it done. I put posts on Craig’s List advertising free sod and cleanfill, and lots of people came and hauled it all away.

Pittsburgh is a very hilly city. I found a few interesting and unique links if you want to learn more about it: Link 1, Link 2, and Link 3. A common alternative to having grass on steep yards is to plant groundcover on the slope. Our neighbors were working on their yard at the same time, and they planted ivy. We chose to plant evergreens called blue rug junipers at the recommendation of my coworker Josh. He helped us choose other plants for our landscaping also, such as a weeping cherry tree, gold thread cypress, and a mountain fire pieris. Everything seems to be growing very well, so I think we’re getting our green thumbs into shape.

It took two pickups and a couple days’ work, but we got our Ikea cabinets home and assembled them all! We took my friend Brandon out to dinner at Bahama Breeze as a thank-you for his help (and truck).

Our dining room is now our kitchen overflow room with a pantry, table, and most of the hardware for the new kitchen. See the action shots below. Our dog always enjoys “helping out”.

I had fun taking photos of the demolition scene from a couple weeks ago… What a mess!