Doors and lights and closets...Oh my!

Let's start with the doors.

My friend, Misty, brought her little girl over today for lunch, playtime, and a tour of our new digs. When she entered the kitchen, she said the same thing almost every blog reader has said:

"The kitchen looks a lot better in person than it does on the blog."

She quickly started to backtrack and apologize (c'mon, Mist, we've been friends since kindergarten...no apology is ever necessary), but she's right. For some reason, in the pics we've posted, the cabinet color looks at least 3 shades lighter than it actually is. I think the pic below is a little more true to the actual cabinet color.

It really isn't country blue...

So where do the doors come in? Well, for the last two days, I've been priming and painting bifold doors to the pantry (on the right in the pic above). I'm happy to say that the pantry and all its multi-colored glory should be doored (is that a word?) by the end of the weekend.

Now for the lights.
Notice that we actually have them. This is a shot of our downstairs and upstairs hallways taken from the base of the stairs. When we agreed to buy the house, we asked the previous owners to disable all of the old knob and tube wiring for safety and insurance purposes. That left us without lights in our hallways, which made it more than a little precarious to walk up and down the stairs, especially while holding Max. Clearly, putting in all new wiring (including a 3-way switch for the light at the top of the stairs) was not a DIY project for us. We asked our friend and insurance agent, Aaron Greer, to recommend a good electrician in town and he came through with Ray Sellers. Besides being a heck of a nice guy, Ray did a great job bringing our lights up to code without doing too much damage to the walls or our pocketbook...

Now for the grand finale: The CLOSET!

Today, Kansas City Closet Company installed our long-awaited custom closet system into our newly-built master closet.

Woohoo!

There's really no good way to photograph it, but let me tell you that KC Closets came through again! We've got six sections of hanging, three built-in laundry baskets, two belt racks, a tie rack, and lots and lots of shelves. Once we get everything in there, we will be totally done living out of boxes. I never thought I'd be so excited about a closet...

So, while Joe is a little down in the dumps, I'm feeling positive and re-energized this week. Sure we have a few unfinished projects, but there are some really good things going on here, too.

And, by the way, Max took his first "real" steps here this week. How can it not feel like home?