With everything going on at casa de Brown, it’s hard to pick a place to start to fill you all in on what’s been happening. To make things a little easier, we’ve compiled a list of things we’ve done in the kitchen over the past week. Hopefully this will shed light on the 411 without being too confusing.

So, this week we…

• Patiently waited for the new, massively huge farmhouse sink
• Installed a new vanity in the half bath (more on that later!)
• Had the cabinet installers come back to install the new sink
• Installed dishwasher
• Installed the dishwasher cabinet panel & hardware
• Ran low-voltage wiring for the future under cabinet lighting
• Had our plumber install a recessed water line for the fridge
• Went counter top and backsplash shopping (more on that later!)
• Had the countertop company come out and measure (ya to the hoo!)
• Took Bentley to the groomer – he wanted me to be sure to add that event
• Began making sense of what’s in the kitchen boxes that have been hanging out in the dining room

It doesn’t seem like a very long list, but we’ve been playing the waiting game because of the damaged sink. For a few days, it seemed like everything was ready to go… everything but the kitchen sink! Having one little problem hold up progress feels completely terrible, especially when you’re trying to get everything done during the holidays. The sink being damaged held up the plumbing being hooked up and the measuring session for the new countertops. In turn, that put the the backsplash tile on hold. Etc, etc, etc. But now the sink is HERE and we’re on a roll.

Here’s a few photos I took with my iPhone last night…

The box in the middle of the kitchen is the new range hood – holla! My dad (who, lucky for us, is a licensed electrician), with Greg’s assistance, is going to be putting that in for us. Maybe Greg will learn a few electrician tips/tricks along the way, too!

As for the laundry room, we’re just now getting used to the fact that there are hardwood floors in there, and we’re loving it! It makes the room feel so much larger.

You may have noticed we moved the antique dresser from the foyer into the laundry room. It just fit too well not to put it there. We’re planning to store umbrellas, batteries, bug spray, extra light bulbs etc. And we’re kind of digging the quirky blue and green color combo.

Oh, and just for good measure, and in case you’re getting bored of all of the kitchen photos, here’s a photo of our cute little mascot sitting on my lap as I type…

Yeah, he’s between me and the keyboard. He likes to be in the middle of things. Oh, come on, you know he’s the cutest dog ever. ; )

There’s a lot more in store for next week – it’s going to be one big whirlwind of kitchen reno fun! Where’s the vitamins? 

For those of you reading in Google Reader, click on over to check out the new look! We’ve been working on this for about five months (yes, it actually takes that long to do things like this) and we’re so happy, and releaved, to finally reveal the new and improved 7th House on the Left.

There are a few more tweaks we are working on, but rather than waiting, we wanted to go ahead, bite the bullet and unleash the new and improved look. We didn’t want to do a total transformation – we really like the notebook design and it says a lot about how we do things (project notebooks are our jam). What the blog really needed was a little bit of tightening and brightening. We (mostly Greg) worked on making the nuts and bolts more efficient and making the overall style of the blog mirror our personal style a little better.

We’ve made a bunch of changes, big and small. From the about page to the full disclaimer + privacy policy page, everyting has been revamped. The biggest difference between the new design and the old one is the color scheme. When we put together the first design, we hadn’t even put the first drop of paint on the walls. If you look back at the post about our first apartment, you’ll notice the color scheme was a lot like the first blog design – or “7th House 1.0″ as Greg calls it. That’s probably because we were living there when we designed it…

Now that we’re actually living in the house and the walls have been painted for a good long time, we noticed the old design 7th House 1.0 looked nothing like our house – which kind of defeats the purpose, right? In fact, remember when I stumbled on a color scheme for the living room? Yeah, the stack of books. Well, when deciding on 7th House 2.0′s color scheme, we decided that would be a good jump off point for the blog too…

See the similarities?

There are a lot of new changes in every nook of the blog but one of my very favorite additions is the Pinterest widget in the sidebar. As you’ve probably figured out by now, I’m a total Pinterest junkie. When we were brainstorming for 7th House 2.0, I mentioned to Greg that it would be so awesome if there was a way to share my latest pins automatically, and be able to click on the photo and go to that pin. He just kind of looked at me with a really weird look on his face and said, “Give me twenty minutes”. Twenty minutes later, low and behold, he created my dream sidebar feature. Sorry ladies, he’s taken.

We’re still ironing out a few kinks, so thanks in advance for being patient and feel free to let us know if something looks wonky on your computer (just let us know what browser/version you’re using). Every computer is different – that’s the crux of designing a blog from scratch. Take a minute and look around the new digs and let us know what you think!

Psssst… We’re not finished yet, but a full kitchen update is coming your way soon! 

All of our dreaming, planning and endless brain storming sessions is finally beginning to  come to light. The cabinet installation is complete but there’s a lot more to do before we can call this turkey “done”. Here’s what the kitchen looked like when the cabinet installers left:

Even though it’s far from finished, it’s such a massive difference!

So here’s what’s going on at the moment…

• The mega-sized farmhouse sink we ordered was damaged, so we have to send it back. Unfortunately, this has set us back a week and we’re not going to be meeting our Christmas deadline. Boo! Once we get the replacement, the cabinet installers will come back out to install the sink (this particular sink is mounted to the cabinet rather than the countertop).
• We also have a few random pieces of crown molding that need to be ordered and installed (we didn’t quite order enough when the cabinets were ordered).
• After the above two things are completed, the countertop guys will come out to make the template (more on the countertop selection later).
• The stove and dishwasher are going to be delivered the beginning of next week followed by the range hood a few days later.
• You might notice the fridge sticking out a little. The water line for the fridge needs to be moved – it’s currently sticking out from the wall too far, so the plumber is coming out to install a recessed line. Once this is done, the fridge will be flush to the cabinetry.

Once all of those things are completed, then Ash will hopefully be feeling better from her surgery (not being able to be in the middle of things is driving her completely crazy!).