Monday, January 21, 2008

Laura's Birthday /First try out of Flash

I went to Laura's birthday Sunday evening and figured this would be a great time to really try out my new strobe (Vivitar 285HV). Since its not a fully automatic flash, it does take a little finesse to work with it. It cycles fast enough on low power setting that I could put the camera in multi-shot mode and it would fire for each one (3-4 times a second).

Here are some pics. The party was fun her mom brought lasagna, it was yummy. It was funny watching her try to wack the "30" pinata. It finally broke loose of the ceiling.

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Remodelling My parents Kitchen

For Christmas we desided to update my parent's kitchen so that it will be more sellable next year when they retire.




Here's a pic of the kitchen before replacing the counters, sink and dishwasher:






Here's another pic with the cabinets removed to be cleaned and lightly sanded. They did not get painted at this time as the weather went south, and snowed.



In removing the counter, we had to remove the bottom row of tiles because the new counter is 3/4 of an inch taller, and what looked like a little metal "L" trim actually went under the tiles and was nailed to the wall. This was one thing that was not expected and took some extra time to get those tiles off without destroying the other ones. We have no plan of replacing all the tiles in the kitchen.




Once the old counter was off, the new one fit like a glove (not a bloody, this glove's too small kind of glove, but a nice well-fitted one).





The counter came with the sink hole only partially routed out so that it remained strong in transit, so I had to use a sabersaw to cut that out. No sweat.


The next unexpected pain was getting the counter screwed down to the cabinets as working in the tight cabinets really required a contortionist.



Here I am working under the sink to get the water connections setup.









Here's the counter and sink done:





And here is the finished product. The old dishwasher is on right and got taken out the next day. That really opened up the the room.


The cabinets still need painting, and a new row of tiles that will tie-in the counter, walls and cabinet colors.