You guys, we are done! Well. Sort of. Over the weekend our contractor finished up and moved out… for now. He originally estimated five weeks, was hoping to be finished in four, and we assumed that meant it would really be six. As of this past weekend, it was exactly six. If we had been a little more organized with the countertops, we might actually be totally finished at this point, but we’re hoping they will be installed in the next two to three weeks. Once the counters are in, our contractor will come back to hook up the sink and dishwasher and install the open shelves (or single shelf, for now, since Ikea only had one in stock).

We love love love this view when we come up the stairs from the front door!! (Even though I had to crop it to hide some of the mess, haha.) We also love that we finally moved the couch and TV back into the living room, so we don’t have to spend all day in the bedroom anymore. It’s so nice to just have the house to ourselves. As much as we loved the crew who were working at our house, often from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. seven days a week, that’s A LOT of not being alone in your own house. We often joked that they might as well just start sleeping in the guest room.

Andy got all of our cabinet drawers and doors installed, except the corner one that is missing a hinge. We’re using pantry shelves as makeshift countertops, which makes cooking a little bit easier, but still, without a kitchen sink it’s super tough and we’re mostly still eating out.

The brackets that you see sticking out of the island are the supports for the counter seating. I love the way the pantry looks with the fridge in the middle, and behind the pantry doors is our microwave, yay! It’s great to have a microwave again — but not have to look at it.

So what’s next? Installing the cabinet hardware, unpacking all our kitchen things, removing the blue protective film so we can see the shiny white cabinets, and then finally countertops!