Progress!

Our contractor, Adam, has been working on the kitchen a little over 2 weeks now and I must say we are quite happy with the progress he's made thus far. Removing the *classy* brown and orange cabinets took a bit longer than expected as the original homeowner (who we think installed everything) had an apparent bolt and nail obsession. He also seemed to have a wood obsession as nearly every room in our house has *custom* built-ins. I imagine our house looked a little something like this back in the 1970s....



Below are three recent photos of the kitchen. After ripping nearly everything out, we're left with MORE WOOD! Why does this keep happening?







And finally an image of what the final layout should look like.

Apples to Apples

With our kitchen renovations commencing this coming Monday, two days from now, I've been constantly thinking about how much more fun cooking and baking will be once the renovations are finished. I've been pouring over my cookbooks trying to find something worthy of being the first recipe I make in the new kitchen. As much as I love grilled cheese, pancakes, cookies, and pie they really aren't *new kitchen worthy* as I frequently made these in our old, ugly kitchen. No, this renovation calls for something really delicious and really special. I'm thinking Austrian....and apples....APPLE STRUDEL. And not the crappy imitation apple strudel recipes that use phyllo dough, oh no, this will be the real thing.



I've always wanted to make this, but have been quite intimidated by the recipe. I think it requires rolling out the dough to something crazy like 4 feet in diameter! Obviously I couldn't make it in our old kitchen which has one small section of counter-top, 3 feet by 2 feet, at least that has always been my excuse in the past. No, this recipe would have to wait for our brand-new, sparkly kitchen. And in true Austrian fashion we will eat it for dinner.