A Small Glitch and a Big Win

The kitchen remodel has gone surprisingly well, with one exception: this huge gap in our hardwood floors where the old peninsula was removed during the gut. 

The guys who redid all of our hardwood floors when we moved in came by and didn't sound that encouraging about a quick fix.  In fact, his exact words were "Oh, d#@%".  Turns out the wood is so thin, he doesn't carry it.  He recommended replacing the whole kitchen with new hardwoods for two grand.  No thanks.  Certainly not in our remodel budget at this point.  Waiting to hear back from him as to whether he was able to dig up any matching wood in his warehouse.  Ideally, we also need to fill in the gaps in the hardwood floor in the pantry that had been covered by cabinets, but we could always get a different thickness wood to replace the entire pantry floor since it will be in the closet.

Speaking of pantry, I am on cloud nine with the storage space (big win).  We bought the shelving at Lowes for an astronomical amount of money, and the contractors installed it yesterday.  Whatever you think pantry shelving should cost, triple that amount in your head.  I almost fainted at the register. 

Finally, we just returned from Home Depot with two gallons of Cinnamon Cherry (seen in s a bigger sample above).  The downside is Tom will be doing the painting (in all his free time) from here on out.  Just painting the pantry proved to be a bit harder at this stage of pregnancy than I had anticipated.  I was just too hot wearing my vapor mask.  So that leaves the kitchen walls, ceiling, and nursery on my fantastic husband's to-do list.  I can do some painting, like edge work, but passing on the big jobs for now.