Gazelle Stacking Boxes

A friend of mine once watched me perform some task involving moving stuff around. His assessment was "You are graceful as a gazelle... stacking boxes" with the obvious point that gazelles are not particularly graceful at stacking boxes. If there's a way to carry something that involves bumping into every possible wall, scraping every corner and damaging the face? I'll find a way. Any instruction that says "protect using method A or "just be careful", I must choose method A or prepare to live with damage. I will never be able to be an appliance installer with this defect. Do not let me carry ladders. Cabinet boy, though, he's really good. Meticulous and careful - with the exception of one angled stud that will never be seen again without a teardown - and he can navigate through chaos with damageable parts no worse for wear. I'm impressed.

I've been dark this whole weekend working all out with cabinet boy to get the cabinets installed with meticulous detail. It was all I could do to get him to let me order a pizza by way of a break. At some point with insufficient water and food I become useless. I hit that point at 4 yesterday but we didn't quit until 5. Today, we thought we just had a little bit to do, but worked 10am-10pm. Yikes. About 3 hours of that was spent trying to figure out my corner cabinet. It faces out to the dining room and we had to install it then measure to recut the pony wall. And it had to be level with cabinets it was 3" away from. I got to the point where I barely cared if it was level or flush at some point and ordered the pizza.

But we got it done and knocked out the concrete anchors and pony wall in, comparatively, no time flat. It looks really nice. Moving the entrance over a foot does make it slightly more awkward to turn on the light. I anticipated that. But everything else is all good. I thought it might feel smaller, but it actually feels bigger because you don't walk in with the fridge right in your face, but off to the side. Because the fridge is so bulky, it really takes up a lot of physical and visual space. Coming in to the side of it makes it visually smaller in the same space. I did not anticipate that, but I like it. Also, the way I'm re-doing the shorter wall, it'll be easier to watch TV while I chop stuff up.

For the cookie party, it will allow 3 or 4 distinct places for people to be inside the kitchen,

1. baking at the stove,
   
2. stirring at the right wall by the pantry
   
3. stirring at the pony wall over the dishwasher
   
4. washing stuff at the sink.

which is one more spot than last year.
Also someone can be grabbing things from the pantry and someone else can sneak by into the kitchen. Handy. I'll still have the bar too, which can seat three, and I'll pull out the table which can handle four. It's going to be really, really nice. Yay!

Countertop guy comes tomorrow to template for the final fit. I've decided to go with mostly cove (integrated) backsplashes for easy cleanup and I prefer them for laminate. Under the bar, it will be a separated backsplash because they can't make the coved one full height. I've got an idea for the window layback. It'll work, but whether or not it works well is the question. It might involve being careful, which means I should get someone else to do the execution.

Pictures to come. Most of them are of the total mess my dining/living room is. But too sleepy to cope with them now. Must go back to work to pay for countertops.