The Kitchen Carcasses

Well, that's one more week gone by. Where did the time go? Let's see:

Andy installed a few more slate tiles in the mudroom. There is still some grout-work to do there, so maybe we'll get to that in the coming week.Karen is routing a side panel of the kitchen cabinets to prepare for assembly. Benson used the router this week, too. Benson really likes to try everything. Except sweeping. Maybe he thinks he has the sweeping thing all figured out already.
We began to assemble the hearth pieces this week, but we didn't get very far. The hearth will be tiled with slate, just like the mudroom. The woodstove will end up about where Andy is standing.
A friend of Chris' came over on Saturday and helped out for a few hours. Tariq and Benson helped assemble these cabinet carcasses, and it's neat to see them in place. There is quite a bit of work to do on them, obviously. But we're making steady progress.
A wider view of the kitchen progress. The island surface you see here will be at 36" high, and on the East side (the left) will be a raised area where we are sure to gather for pie. And ice cream. Or maybe just pie. Or maybe just ice cream... oh, the dilemmas we will have!
Sorry, Karen. You have a looooong way to go with that little bitty sander. With softwood floors, we thought it prudent to avoid the commercial floor sanders in favor of a more delicate approach. Karen and Mindy have spent hours and hours sanding around the house, and room by room, we move closer to the end.
A bit of innocent vandalism for a nephew in New York. Happy birthday, Hunter!
Chris and Karen's bedroom, with a view through to the bathroom in the background. The wall is closed in now, and that makes a real nice shift from having everything so open.
The two Takagi tankless water heaters are mostly installed. The vents have a few extra pieces to put together early next week. A 1,000 gallon propane tank will be installed on Tuesday, and shortly after that, we hope to turn on the slab and heat the house up a bit. The propane tank will be underground, thankfully. At 5'x5'x18', it's not exactly subtle.
Andy and Mindy's bathroom has seen some big changes. They chose a vanity, sink, and hardware, and that is basically roughed in at this point. The shower base is also installed, but we still have to figure out the walls and put those together.
We built a small vanity for the mudroom bath this week, and applied a single coat of dark tung oil, just like the floor. Actually, the top surface of the vanity was made from extra flooring pieces, so it matches the floor pretty well, and will look great on the slate. The holes for the drain and faucet are finished, and it was tempting to put the vessel and faucet in place. All in good time.
The excavators made some good progress on the grading around the house. This is the window on the North wall. It would have been a huge undertaking for us to get these stones into place ourselves. We plan a similar retaining wall for the garden area and for the entrance to the front door. Which is really on the side. Anyway, it will also have stones there. We hope to see that come together this week after they install the propane tank.