Look! Fluffy pink insulation and a vapor barrier. How fun! In the meantime, the beam between the pantry and kitchen has been replaced/shored up, and the floor covered. Old, blown in insulation was removed and this stuff put in. Windows will be replaced eventually too. Weathertight goodness will be ours.

Watch that first step... In addition to having this little room transformed, there was also some shoring up of the floor between the pantry and the kitchen that needed to be done and since some of the floor boards needed replacing anyway, and because access to the area needing shoring up is via a pretty tight crawl space, the work was done from above. Here you can see where the flooring was removed to gain access to the crawl space so a rotting beam could be replaced. Amazingly enough this adjustment also straightened up the doorframe in the pantry so the door closes properly now.

Operation pantry demolition complete. Look, we used to have another window, and wallpaper. A very narrow, short door, going into what is now the kitchen was also uncovered. The original layout of the house is a big mystery.

Here's one portion of the latest undertaking here at the casa. Used by previous owners as a laundry room, this will become the pantry. It may not look like much now, but with new insulation, windows, flooring, drywall, outlets, countertops and repurposed cabinetry it will become a first rate pantry. Stay tuned for future updates and progress.

Our friends called us last week and invited us to take a little drive out to Endicott to have a nice chicken dinner at Phil's Chicken House. I don't know who Phil is, but he can put on one heck of a buffet. There was lots of yummy food and camaraderie. They had what I call "homestyle" potato and mac salad. Think of homestyle versus deli style - who knows what they really dress that stuff with when you get it from the deli, but it's just not natural. There were lots of good salads, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, soup, breads and don't forget to save room for pie. Phil serves the locally famous Cornell chicken along with all of that other great stuff. I've talked about that type of chicken here before, but in case you missed it, you can find more info here. Other people like Phil's too!

One of our gentle readers wanted to know what projects we've been up to lately. Most recently we've done a little renovation of our downstairs powder room. It's gotten a nice new coat of paint, a new light fixture, and new mirror and fixtures - hooks, shelf, towel bar and TP holder (all of which, save the hooks, came from IKEA). There is also a new doorknob, complete with lock. Chris got creative and refreshed the switchplates, outlet covers and ceiling vent with dark gray paint that goes nicely with the brushed stainless fixtures. Even though it was a lot more work than you might anticipate, since it's such a small room, we're really happy with the outcome.