Vacation TODO: Day 9

Today was the final day of my vacation. It wasn’t as fully productive as I’d envisioned, but I’ll take it.

Two items got fully crossed off the list today. The first is #16, dining room speakers. Earlier in the week I ordered the speakers, and they arrived two days ago. This morning I measured, referred to pre-drywall pictures, and measured again before cutting out the circular holes on the ceiling for each speaker. Each hole ened up in the perfect spot and I’m happy. The primary concern with cutting these holes was that they might intersect one of the joists - and that would have been bad. (For some reason my stud-finder doesn’t work upside down.) Behind each hole was the speaker wire I’d installed before the drywall, just waiting for me to hook it up. With the speakers in place I got my old stereo out of storage (out of the closet I cleaned on Vacation Day #1…) and hooked it up the the other end of the speaker wires which terminate in one of the upper kitchen cabinets. Not only did I bring the speaker wires into this cabinet, but I brought power as well - that’s called planning ahead. Can you tell I’m proud of myself? Here’s a picture (which incidentally shows off the new chandelier and the box beam ceiling too…)

They sound great. It’s not like a live performance, or even like our media room, but it is better than fine for ambient music listening for the entire first floor. The speakers I chose are a bit unconventional in that the each handle left and right channels - each speaker is stereo on it’s own. I thought this might sound wonky but it’s fine. As an added bonus, we can turn off either speaker independently from the receiver. Our living/dining room is long and I thought that having separate left/right speakers might sound wierd at one end of the room or the other. So far the verdict is Thumbs Up.

The other item that got done today was #6, under cabinet lighting. I wasn’t planning on doing this today but looking at the list it looked like less pain than painting. In reality this item isn’t 100% done - there is one more cabinet to put lights under, but it is a special case and will get done later after some other stuff that isn’t in the list.

Trissa worked on #7, but there are still some more coats of varnish necessary. We’ll finish these up this week - right now they’re taking up space in the living room.

1. Kitchen cabinet doors. 11 total. 4 important ones for the base cabinets.
2. Kitchen cabinet drawers. 7 total.
3. Upper cabinet crown.
4. Kitchen nook seating and table.
5. Kitchen island trim and panels.
6. Kitchen under-cabinet lighting.
7. 3 interior doors: sand, varnish, install with hardware. (Important baby-proofing item…)
8. Paint kitchen ceiling and walls (already primed).
9. Paint foyer ceiling and walls.
10. Electrical panel - re-order the breakers and document them all.
11. Strip and sand baseboard for the living / dining room. Determine if it can be re-varnished.
12. Cable TV to the kitchen. Forgot this when we had the walls open (DOH!)
13. Window sill for kitchen nook. Started this but is incomplete.
14. Exterior lights by the back doors.
15. Dining room chandelier (choose, purchase, install).
16. Dining room speakers (purchase, install - I prewired for them before we drywalled…)
17. Cat door platform (ask Trissa…)
18. Clean the upstairs hall closet - it’s a MESS!

In a day or two I’ll try to do a photo-recap of all the completed list items - so check back!