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!

In Living Color

Jason's sister Jennifer and her boyfriend Bill offered us a fabulous gift for our 31st birthdays in 2007 - their time and energy to paint a room in our house (they run a small faux/mural/painting biz out of Aurora). So we went to work Friday morning with white primed walls and came home to lemon drop ceilings, svelte green walls and an empire gold nook! The colors look really fabulous together - I don't think it could be more perfect. Jenny and Bill did an amazing job - and they did all the cut-in by hand - no tape! Looks fantastic. They really did a lovely job.

There were some issues with the paint product we used for the empire gold nook - we had gotten dutch boy for that area and after three coats there is still some bleed through and the paint doesn't seem to stick to the walls. Bill said it's not unheard of to get a bad batch of paint, one that simply didn't get enough glue in the mixing process. Jay is going to go to Menard's to see if we can get a refund, and Bill offered to come back once we get different paint.

But in the meantime, it still really does look great. The colors blend so well, and you can tell it was done professionally versus me doing it. :) We plan on having Jenny & Bill back to do the hallway in a faux - should be a great cover for the several coats of painted-over wallpaper that's left the wall texture pretty rough, seamed and cracked. But with their able hands, I'm sure it will look awesome ...

I really am falling in love with this kitchen ... makes up for all the frustration I've been all stressed about lately with dear old Humphrey House. Feeling very ... attached.

:) Now we get ready for CABINETS!

Soy-Based Foam Insulation

Our kitchen will be the warmest and quietest place in our house, thanks to the new soy foam insulation now expanding in our walls. The stuff is really neat to see go in and even better once installed.
Soy-based foam is made by BioBased, and expands about 100 times its original size to fill every nook and cranny in the walls, better than any kind of rolled insulation. Unlike traditional fiberglass insulation, which even though it holds thermal energy in, teh foam also stops air leakage. This will be especially welcome in the cold and drafty kitchen nook addition (located over a crawlspace).

And no, just because it's made from soybeans doesn't mean it's edible to people (or critters for that matter). We chose a soy product because, while there are other spray foam insulation available, this is the only one that is not oil-based (urethane), and it is a water-based spray, so it truly is sustainable and green. It doesn't even smell bad when they're spraying it. Loking

For our project, we needed to get a minimum R-19 in the walls to meet code requirements, so we went with a "closed-cell" version, which provides an effective R-value of 5.5 per inch! What does all this mean? Well for our kitchen, we won't need to have as many heat leads cutting into the floor, and we should see a big impact in terms of lower utility bills. We may not drop 50% like a whole-house (new construction) would get, but it will still be significant for this old house.

And as we've also discovered, it's an awesome noise barrier. When we checked it out last night, the room was almost dead silent. It will be nice to not hear the ambulances running down our neighboring street on the way to the hospital anymore!


There is video on BioBased's website that shows much better than I can explain how this all works. But if you're in the Chicago area and interested in checking out soy foam insulation for your home project, I recommend contacting Renewable Resource Insulation to see how they might be able to help. One note: this does need to be applied to open-cavity walls (studs). They don't yet have a product that can be injected inside existing walls, but I'm told it's in the works.

Insulation Made of (Human?) Hair

Our kitchen's breakfast nook is a bump-out over a crawlspace next to our kitchen. We originally thought this was added on, but after peeling back layers of the house, we now realize this was part of the original home. This latest discovery helped confirm that. We had to remove an odd covering that was above the ceiling joists in the nook, and it turned out to be hair! Yes, indeed Hair! After removing this, our floor looked like Cousin It got a trim.


But what exactly is it? We had briefly seen hints of the mysterious building material, but nothing quite prepared me for seeing the whole thing on our floor. It was quite a hairy mess! (sorry, I couldn't resist a pun). For those curious about this material, it was basically a 1/2" of hair sandwiched between 2 layers of building paper. It was clearly very old and practically disintegrated on touch. Unfortunately I don't have any "before" photos of this, but it was placed (not fastened) above 1x6 boards running perpendicular the ceiling joists. Above the paper/hair sandwich, another run of 1x1's were nailed to other framing to hold the thing in place. Here's a photo:


I simply can't believe this was used. Especially since elsewhere in the home (e.g. the walls, floors) there is no insulation! Maybe this was an attempt to keep the naturally cooler addition warmer? It probably only had an R-value of like 1. Also, exactly what kind of hair is it? Part of me wants to take it and get it tested. Is it horse hair, or some other animal? Perhaps human? Maybe a long lost relative? Will I find the body belonging to this hair buried in the crawlspace? All very engaging questions, you be the judge.


Jen and I will be making a tight building envelope and having soy-based foam insulation installed in our walls (more on that later), but while we were getting estimates, one contractor said he had seen this only a few times and it was clearly a sign of a pre-1920 building technique (our house was built in 1912). Hair. I never would have believed it. I'm left in wonder.

The Great Kitchen Debate ...

We've been struggling to come up with a decent kitchen design lately. This past weekend my parents came up from p-town with my grandma and my aunt and uncle who live in naperville came out and we all sat down and played with some kitchen schemes for fun. It got a bit out of hand, as committees often do (smirk) and of course, no solid design came out of it but it was fun. What we do know is we're going to combine the current kitchen and the bedroom backing up to it into one large approximately 17 x 11 room, but beyond that, we seem to be lost. As you'll see when you click on the link above, we have come up with an idea or two. But none that really seem to combine the space well. I want it to flow together, feel natural. But with no less than three doors and two windows in the space, it's hard not see it all choppy. much as I want to be, I'm SO not a whiz at this design thing. You need an ad? I'm your woman. Looking for a logo? Call me. But designing living spaces? Not so much my game.

Above is a sketch of the generic layout of the room - or at least how it will be once the wall down the middle is gone. We can't afford to build out or up - neither would work in terms of money or dealing with the EV. Maybe someone out there in blogland will have a suggestion that will amaze and astonish and save us the continued agony! I'd even be willing to trade some graphic or web design services for kitchen design services. We just need help!

In the meantime, I found a cooktop secondhand, so I know the ktichen will require a 30" cooktop and separate oven.

Can't wait to hear from the blogosphere ...