And on the 1,127th day ....

THERE WAS LIGHT!

After weeks and weeks of endless searching, and armed with our home depot gift cards from Christmas (our families ROCK), Jay and I finally found lighting fixtures we could agree on. From Hampton Bay's Rock Creek Collection, may I present the most well-lit kitchen this side of the Mississippi!
















Mark and Jason went on an installation binge the other day with these babies, as well as one light we discovered in our garage we only vaguely remembered buying a few years ago (sidebar: while we both recall it was for our dining room and it was stained glass, jason thought it was square-shaped and I seemed to recall it being green). This light actually turned out to really rock in the space we'd now deemed it for (the nook). YAY!

Subzero Winter Temps are no match for Foam

Despite the blustery winter chill gripping Chicago this weekend, our kitchen has been remarkably cozy and warm. It turns out our foam insulation installer was right - Harsh winds are stopped outside our home from coming in while we merrily continued to finish the cabinet installation and hook up some of our lighting fixtures. Jen is really excited about the lights, so I'll let her post about it along with some photos soon.

But, i just wanted to let everyone know that if you're considering different types of insulation and live in a place with harsh climates, I encourage you to consider foam insulation (or in our case, soy foam).

Electrifying our Kitchen

Thanksgiving weekend was so busy at Humphrey House that we're still recovering from the work. It began innocently enough by continuing some framing-related activities, and a touch of demolition as the remaining plaster and lathe in our hallway was removed so we could have a clean surface to frame from and also replace the old wiring. Then we started electrical work.

Our electrician friend Fred came by Saturday morning bright and early at 6 am and we began routing the conduit piping for our kitchen. After living in a kitchen for 2+ years with inferior lighting, I now realize how important this is. We used to have one center-mounted ceiling fan light, and a fluorescent light over our sink. The problem with a center ceiling light is that, while functional, there is no place you can go in the kitchen without having your shadow follow you and get in your work space. It's extremely frustrating!

Our new lighting plan will be much more robust with multiple schemes. We're installing a center fixture again, but this will be supplemented by pendant lights over the sink and the peninsula counter. We'll have four 4" recessed can lights (all that would fit in our 2x6 ceiling) focused on work areas like the stove and counters on either side of the sink. And most helpful, we'll have undercabinet lighting for a bright work area!

In order to avoid watching our electrical usage increase exponentially with the new lights, I'd like to get some LED strips for undercabinet lighting and dimmable compact fluorescent light bulbs, also knowns as cold-cathode bulbs (CCFLs not to be confused with standard CFLs). These now have a good color temperature (2800 Kelvin) so it won't give off a harsh white/blue light normally associated with fluorescents, and can screw into any existing light fixture and last even longer than standard CFLs (which of course have a longer life and lower consumption than standard incandescent bulbs).

Anyway, in the course of working this weekend, we discovered that the original wiring feeding much of the first floor ceiling fixtures was in very bad shape. Not originally a huge concern since we were redoing it all in the kitchen anyway, right?

Well, the problem is the wires in our first floor bathroom ceiling light, which serves as kind of a wiring hub, were overheating a bit and the old cloth insulation was all brittle and decayed at the touch. Ouch! So now we have to pull down part of the bath ceiling and try to find a part of the original BX that is in serviceable condition and try to reestablish the line for now. In the meantime, we've cut power to this dangerous line, which means no light for that bathroom, our temporary kitchen, foyer, or front porch until next weekend.