Last Saturday I drove to central Michigan to meet my baseball partners. This summer we took in a game at each of the single A Midwest League stadiums in Michigan. We had others join us for some of the games but me and these three went to them all. So we had one last game to see in Midland with the Great Lakes Loons.

This is a fantastic stadium, great price for a ticket and great sight lines to watch a game. The fans at this stadium are really into their team and it makes it very fun to take in a game there.

We have already picked out the three games we want to take in together for the 2011 season. We have to wait until the schedules to come out before we see when we will go to each stadium.
We are going to go to Traverse City to take in the Beach Bums in the independent league.
A trip to Toledo to see the AAA Tiger affiliate, the Mudhens.
And the the major of the season, I trip to Chicago to watch a game at historic Wrigley Field.

The wife and I went with friends to the fair last weekend.

It felt like a blast to our childhoods and a slice of Americana.

The picture kind of captures that.

Well the door is on and some decoration hung to make it seem much more finished.

I still need to get the crown molding put on the cabinetry and I need to trackdown some quarter round for the bottom of cabinet. We stopped off at a hardware store and they would sell us an 8′ quarter round of this type of wood and coloring for $25. We told them they could keep it.

I still have to get a counter guy to cut the corner counter piece square so I can get that installed.

Other than this small items, it is done and it looks good. Much better than the 1960s brick which really dated the house and didn’t make the kitchen look or feel as modern as it should.

Had to do the a little touch up paint and then when the walls were build, there was a crack put in the living room wall on the backside of the pantry. I ended up repainting the entire wall so it is all fresh and new now.

We got a new light installed over the kitchen sink. It is bright, much more than the other lights we had in that place. It is 3 halogen lights so it burns hotter than the CFL we used to have there, but the extra bright light is pretty nice. I broke a light when the step stool I as on moved and I lost my balance and dropped the bulb. I got glass in my foot and later in the weekend Jen got glass in her foot. Not sure how Jen got glass in her foot since the wife and I swept the floor multiple time before people were over for the weekend. Some how we missed it and we are sorry Jen.

We got a shelving unit and had to cut down each shelf to fit in our pantry correctly. When we started mounting the rails, I went over board like I normally do on these kind of things. I bought some mounting anchor screws that will hold 100 lbs per screw on 1/2″ drywall. The problem was when I had used up those massive anchor screws, I went to use some other more normal anchor screws that I have used in the past. I was tired and trying to save time and when to put it in with the power driver. Wasn’t paying attention and went too fast and bored the screw right through the drywall. Then I had a 1/2″ diameter hole to patch.

The shelves are now in and have food put on them.

I am a little behind the posts on progress of the kitchen pantry so the next few posts will get you caught up to where we are. We have been hauling tail for a week trying to get this thing finished off because we had people coming to the house past weekend.

We needed to get the cabinet back in place but since the cabinet was built with extra wood on the right side of the cabinet that was needed in the old configuration. So we laid the cabinet down and measured out the distance that we needed and clamped a 2×6 down as a guide for the circular saw. Then put down painters tape over the cabinet to protect the finish of the cabinet and started to saw and realized the saw blade I have isn’t made for the type of wood I am trying cut. My blade is really made for pipe, poplar or mdf. It was too late and my local hardware store was closed, so I had to drive to 28th Street and get a saw blade. When it was all said and done, it was about and hour delay for less than 5 minutes of sawing.

Now we were able to mount the cabinet in place and then put the corner unit in place also. Ran into a small problem where the previous cabinet installer didn’t have the cabinet square and then cut the Corian to his angle so it does not fit my square corner. So now I have to get a hold of a counter installer and get this little corner cabinet cut square for me.

We have started to put up the paint now.

The ceiling has been painted. There is one coat of paint in the pantry and there is one coat of paint on the new walls. We have run out of the yellow paint that goes on the walls so the wife will have to pick up more tomorrow. There wasn’t much left from when we originally painted the kitchen.

We have second coats to go, putty up the nail holes in the door frame and paint the other side of the wall which is in the living room. We also have to get the trim installed and painted then we can rehang the door. We will need to find shelves we want in the pantry and mount them and find a new light for over the kitchen sink. We also need to put the cabinet back in and reinstall the little corner cabinet as well as the corner counter top.

That should end it for this part of the project. The wife has plans for the island in the kitchen that we still need to do but that will be its own separate project.

Got the second coat of primer on the walls tonight so now we are ready to throw some color on the walls. This is the worst part of any renovation project. Drying time.

Realized tonight that I might not have enough trim left to trim in this project. I buy a ton of it and just keep in the basement and as we finish off a room I use what is available down there. But I haven’t bought any in a while and the stash has dwindled a bit. While it is not a huge space, trimming up and over a door on both sides, takes a lot of trim and you need a lot of long continuous pieces.