The Sweet Suite: Or, The Project that Never Ends

The kitchen is installed, the doors are hung, the tenants are moved in and the suite is finished.  Well... Jared did break a light fixture on the last day, and so it needs to be replaced, and I never did get around to touching up all the paint I wanted to, and most of the electrical plugs are painted over because we thought we were going to have the time to replace them.  But, besides all that, the suite is finished!!!

I totally realize that I am way too excited about my crumby basement suite, but Jared and I have literally put our blood and sweat, if not tears, into it over the last two weeks (I'll be honest, Jared has put a lot more sweat into it than I, but I'm just better at baby feeding, that's all.)   I no longer am going to call it our "crumby little basement suite" but our "really awesome, totally cool, pretty sweet suite!"  Sounds better, doesn't it? 

In two short weeks we tore out EVERYTHING, and re-did it all.  And much of it we did with Silas on our backs!

He's a trooper, that kid!

We did learn a few important lessons in this, our first major home renovation:

1. Two short weeks are really too short to completely renovate an entire home.  Seriously.  A month would have been sufficient, two weeks was just about suicide.
2. When a caulking disaster strikes, and online it says that there is no solvent or method of removing waylaid caulk, tell the "experts" to stick it, and grab your good friend Mr. Clean and his Magic Eraser. Apply a little elbow grease, and before you know it, the great caulk spill of 2010 will be ancient history.  No magic dome to contain the mess, no caustic chemicals to clean it up, just magic little "micro scrubbers" washing it away.  For some reason I envision little microscopic alien robots with mops scrubbing away at our brand new counter top covered in caulk.  Keep up the good work little buddies!
3. A few accessories can do wonders in a small, white kitchen.

Um, I'm sure there were more lessons learned (like don't ever let Jared touch a paint roller ever again) but I can't think of them right now.

I did promise to send out a mad Blog Props to my brother-in-law Aaron, his crazy plumbing skills, and his family, without whom, we would NEVER have been able to finish it in time!  We love the Russells!

Here's the finished product.  Note the broken light.  Oops.

Even with the antique stove (we like to call him 'The Admiral') it looks fabulous.  Hopefully such a fanciful abode means we will never be a month without renters ever again!!! (By the way, it's available in September...)