Coming Together

Hope springs eternal...
And slowly, like the progress of an glacier inching across the plains of America thousands of years ago, our house is getting closer to becoming a home.

The soon-to-be kitchen

Today, the electrician put in the lights and connected the dedicated plugs for the refrigerator, dishwater and stove. Earl is hard at work in the picture above deciphering the directions from Ikea.

The table will be cleared off and centered under the light eventually. 

Earl chose the light fixture to go over the table. It has Edison bulbs which are a bit hard to photograph.

These light fixtures will eventually shine on the upper cabinets and the counter top below. 

The other night, after painting two mist coats of pain on the drywall then two base coats of matte paint followed by a coat of satin, Earl decided to tackle a small cabinet. We've never purchased Ikea before so had not idea how to begin, but eventually, we (mostly Earl) figured it out. I would wander through the room to hold something in place and say something like "I think this is backward."

Starting with the smallest cabinet

This lower cabinet had three drawers, but it took awhile to figure out each drawer face came in its own box.
We haven't put the hardware on yet. We chose stainless steel drawer pulls and knobs for the cabinets, but now I'm considering switching to crystal. I would just need to convince Earl.

The completed cabinet standing on the newly tiled floor. 

It took a bit of figuring before Earl looked at the picture to see that the large drawer is in the middle, the middle-sized drawer at the bottom. Seems counter intuitive.
The gas is not hooked up to the stovetop yet, but the over is electric, so I can roast some vegetables and barbecue some pork chops in the oven. It's almost like a real, home-cooked meal in our new house.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the house, lights have sprung up in formally dark places.
The kitchen had a fluorescent light that wouldn't flicker on anymore.
Earl removed it and replaced it with this fixture.

We still need to encase the wires, as the French do, but at least we have light in what has served as our kitchen while we've been redoing the new kitchen.
Earl put up this light on Saturday while I was in Perpignan with a friend. I dropped some groceries off at the house Saturday evening, working by the light of my cell phone, before I went to meet Earl.
He asked if I had stopped by the house. I told him I had. He asked how I liked the new light.
What new light? I asked.
I hadn't thought to try the light switch because the light had never worked. It's quite bright when turned on.
He also replaced the bare bulb hanging in the stairwell.

This was a look I was anxious to get rid of. 

I found two light sconces at the Troc in Carcassonne for 8 euros each. I later saw them at Brico Depot (think Home Depot) for 19.99 euros each, so I got a bargain.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea. 

So parts of our house are getting to feel downright civilized. Before you know it, we'll be hosting people in our kitchen while we figure out what to do with the living room.