The Lake House Renovation: Fresh Kitchen with Not So Fresh Fruit

I've been playing a little coy with the latest on our kitchen.  Last weekend, we cooked in it for the first time since we started this project, but it still wasn't quite finished.

I was going to wait to share pics until everything was done, but we had such dramatic changes this weekend, that I had to share.  

Here's what it looked like Saturday morning.  

The island is Presley's favorite new play spot.  

Window looking onto the street. 

We had a small issue with our bracket for our tv, so we are waiting for liquid nail to harden before putting it on the fireplace. 

Then, Saturday, around 2:00, the magical fairies from Great American Home Store made a beautiful delivery.  

No dogs on the new furniture, so Aaron and Julia picked up this doggie bed from Costco for us.  

Finally!  We have furniture.  I am so happy with it.  It looks amazing and is so functional.  We are still missing a couple of chairs.  

Also, we finally have a vent hood.  I cannot tell you the headache this thing was.  I really wanted one that just blended into the background, meaning, I wanted to hide it in a cabinet.  We had so much trouble finding one that would work.  To the rescue, Aaron found us the perfect model.  Which, once again, I hope you are following his Facebook page.  He has helped us solve so many problems.  

In addition to helping us find the vent hood, Aaron also helped us install it!
Follow his Facebook page! 

It looks great, and I love how it makes the backsplash look!

Woohoo!

There are still a few things left to do in the kitchen.  Michael's dad is helping us get our outlets finished up.  

Here's a few more pictures from this weekend...

Breaking in the card table!

Couldn't let the weekend pass without a boat ride.

My love for this guy is unhealthy.  If you get one, make sure you get an iRobot Roomba brand.
Yes, they are more expensive than off brands, but they are so worth it.  We had an off brand and it was crap.
This little guy works.

So, all of our dishes have been sitting in our storage area.  We were so frantic the day we moved all of our dishes out of the kitchen for demo, that apparently we missed a bowl of fruit.  This is what fruit looks like after 4 months.  Yep, that's a banana!  YUCK!

The Lake House Renovation - Aaron and the Wall

Everyone needs an Aaron.

He's smart, resourceful, and talented in so many ways.  Most importantly, he's been one of the greatest friends of ours for the past 5 years.

At the top of the Empire State Building with Aaron

He's been a godsend for us in our renovation adventures.

He gave us an extreme amount of help in our last house when we did a little reno project on our kitchen.

Aaron helping us install our new cabinets in the old house

He played a huge role in the design and construction of the new kitchen in our old house.  He guided us through the demo process, took down old and hung new cabinets, and connected us with all the right people to create this beautiful kitchen.  

Another picture of our renovated kitchen in our old house.

Unfortunately for me, but lucky for you, this is literally the only picture I can find of our old kitchen.  (Yes, I'm wearing a onesie.)  It didn't have a dishwasher, the previous owner had covered up a beautiful window with that shelf you see, and cabinets/sink just needed to be majorly updated.

Once again, he's going above and beyond to help us make this lake house renovation happen.  

We would be so lost without him.  

Aaron working to prepare our ceiling to hold a wall

He's flipped more than a dozen homes and just has a lot of incredible connections to the right people and a huge knowledge of all things real estate.  Check out some of his own projects here.

So, speaking of that wall he helped us with this weekend, we now have the structure for our mudroom wall up and ready for sheet rock and anything else it takes to make a wall a wall.

This is looking at our mudroom if you were standing in the area of our kitchen island.  The window in the mud room will be moved to the center.  The kitchen window will be removed because cabinets will go there.  When you walk in through the garage, you will see the mudroom.  This way, you can drop off your junk there to keep from cluttering the kitchen.

We would love for the mudroom to look something like this.  We'd like cubbies on one side and possibly some sort of built in desk on the wall where the window is.  The window will eventually be centered.  

This gives you an idea of the size of the mud room.

So, what am I not thinking about in regards to the mud room?  Am I missing something?  Do you have something in your mud room that you love?

Oh, and here are some more of our favorite Aaron memories.

We met via softball.

Always ready for an adventure

Cheering on Michael along with our friend Andrew when Michael ran the marathon

We have a lot of fun with Aaron and his sweet fiancee, Julia.  (She's holding the trophy.)