Pictures of our progress

Well, the work on the den has been put on hold until the crew finishes the shop.  Dennis doesn’t like to leave them unattended…it usually means redoing what they have done when he does so.  So here is what the den looks like right now:

 

 the inside,

 

   the outside (not through painting the trim).

Here is what the shop looks like:

 

We spent part of Thursday and all day Friday installing my new stove and refrigerator…thanks to a LOT of plumbing problems that arose in the process.  Dennis thought it would be easy to hook up the icemaker, since there was already a connection and pathway from before we moved into this house.  That connection turned out being completely filled with harden mineral deposits, so he had to hunt all over town to find the right pieces to hook up a new one.  Doing that dislodged some of the debris which ruined my kitchen faucet…so we had to replace that.  Then we discovered that some more got into the dishwasher and ruined it.  THAT will have to wait!  I’ve gone many a year doing dishes by hand, and it won’t hurt me to do it again for awhile!  Anyway, we finally got all of that done.  After transferring everything to my new frig, I cleaned up the old one real well and put it out in the den (for now).  I’ve been keeping tea and an ice chest with ice on the front porch for the construction crew.  Now I have it transferred to the old frig, so they can come into the cool and have good cold tea to drink.  When the shop is finished, we'll move it out there to use for aging deer and keeping drinks and snacks for Dennis when he's working.

I LOVE my new appliances!  My refrigerator is so big that I am able to keep everything in it with room to spare.  I used to have to keep some things in our “overflow” small refrigerator in the garage.  Plus I kept all of my frozen food in the big freezer.  Now I can keep all of my frozen veggies and leftovers in the freezer drawer of my frig, where they are handy.  My icemaker will make it much easier to keep the guys supplied with plenty of ice…and still have enough leftover for our needs.

I think I’m also going to really enjoy my new stove.  My first meal I cooked in it was homemade pizza, and it cooked the crust perfectly.  It has a “proofing” setting for bread (or pizza) dough, a dehydrating setting (for making jerky), a slow-cook setting, and also has a convection fan to help cook things more evenly…even when baking several things at a time.  It also has a 5^th burner that is long…for using a griddle or other long pan.  So far I’m very pleased with the results that I’ve gotten from it!  I feel very blessed to have such fine new tools in my kitchen!