It's the little things

...that make all the difference. Am I right?

I showed you this picture a few weeks ago to highlight the beautiful work Michael had done carving down and installing the crown molding over our cabinets.

What this photo also highlights is how horribly unfinished the kitchen looks without window molding or a windowsill. (And believe me, it also feels unfinished without a windowsill to sit stuff on!)

I've been trucking along (...well, crawling at a snails pace), stripping the layers and layers of most likely lead laden paint from the original molding and it is finally all stripped, sanded, the seemingly millions of old nails hold have been filled and now it's (almost) all primed.*

 And up on the wall it goes!

How are we doing? Kidding...

I thought this would be as far as this update went; lots and lots of beautiful molding going up all around our kitchen. I was wrong though...

This apparently happened while I was at work** this morning. Granted, the window sill is just sitting there, unattached, and the lower molding is being held up with tape, but it's a start. It needs some further leveling and calking before being permanently fixed in place.

And this is happening now! Working with all the weird/slightly off angles in our house has been no picnic for the resident woodworker, but it's getting there.

Hopefully this week will be filled with lots of sanding, priming, securing, and painting!

*On a related DIY note: while I love, love, love my soy gel paint stripper (it works better and is much less smelly than other products I've used), this job would have gone much quicker had we tried our heat gun first (totally forgot we had that when we started out...oops!). About half were stripped with soy gel and half with the heat gun.

**Yes, I am indeed working again, 2 days per week in a sweet little bakery. I'm loving it but don't want to say much more for now. I am still there on a "trial" period...for 3 more months. Apparently the tight kitchen quarters (and I mean TIGHT) have caused many people to leave abruptly so they do a very extended trial to make sure everything is working out and everyone is happy.