Last Sunday my parents unexpectedly watched Lillian for the day.  What a treat! Instead of slothing around like we usually do, I wanted to get some kitchen remodeling projects wrapped up.  Our Japanese guest Kayoko arrived to stay with us Thursday and that motivated me to get a lot of things done last week! After a delicious, inexpensive, large portioned lunch at Lavash Cafe, Alex and I measured, measured, measured, then cut and installed the [...]

After a slow start due to last night’s celebrating, Len and Alex began installing Expanko floating cork flooring. They struggled through the first third until they eventually decided to brace against a different wall. Then things moved more quickly and the whole room is now corked! We each left marks in the room, our own 2009 time capsule of sort as pictured below.

Demolition starts on the kitchen tomorrow.  The general plan (I hope) is that we tear out and repair walls tomorrow, mud and sand the next day, then paint on the 28th before laying cork floor. The problem is that I don’t know what color to paint. The floors are amber hued cork.  Cabinets are light stained oak.  Countertops can be any virutally any color we want because the concrete and inclusions have limitless possibilities.  We [...]

On Monday night, we received our quote for purchasing sheet linoleum and installation.  It was 50% higher than we expected and plans wound up with seams running in front of both the sink and the stove.  After stewing about what to do for a few days, we visited Greenovate, a local green building materials company.  They had a variety of flooring on display, including cork.  Alex fell in love with this pattern: We went back [...]