Here is a closer view of our kitchen pop-out from the outside. There is something missing—there is no vent for the vegetable cooler which will be in a cabinet on the inside.

Jim and I had this in mind from the beginning and it is one of the reasons we put the pop-out in—to have a place on the north side of the house where we could have a vent to the outside for the vegetable cooler.

In 1969, when my parents moved into a fancy, old apartment, there was a cupboard in the kitchen which had a vent to the outside. It had been built when refrigerators were very small and used only for meat and other highly perishable items. My mother discovered that vegetables and bread keep much better if they are stored at root cellar temperature rather than in a fridge. We wanted to have a cooler here and had it in the plans, but didn’t really have a detailed idea for the grid to cover the opening, so it has been forgotten until now.

This is the “roof” of the pop-out. It was framed incorrectly, so Kai will have to redo it. It will be under the walkway roof instead of having regular roofing on it, so it is not as urgent as it would otherwise be.

He will also have to reframe below the window to allow for the grid to be installed, but, again, it should not be too difficult.

Here is the new media cabinet in the living room. I will probably move the lamps around once we get a TV for this room, but until then, I will leave it the way you see.

The baskets look great on the walls and seem much larger in real life.

The wall opposite the front door is the purple one. One of the baskets has purple triangles in it. Although the colors don’t look like it in this photo, it works very well on the wall.

I brought the shelf unit up because it was a spare piece of furniture in our basement at home, but it may have moved in for good. It works very well as a phone-charging station although I will probably move the stereo to the media cupboard.

The kitchen looks great. We will be getting larger wall shelves later on adding much-needed storage space, but for now, we can manage.

The black thing on the right is a huge tool bench with a butcher-block top and stainless steel drawers which I got at Costco last summer. It is not too lovely from the rear, but I wanted to try it out as an island. If it works out as usable space, I will buy a real island from Ikea.

February 15th

I forgot my camera today, and spent most of the day at the table in the cottage with Abe and Alan from the electrical contractor picking out light fixtures. When we went over to walk the house, Abe lent me his camera to take these shots.

As you can see, we are starting to get the doors installed. It is very encouraging to be finally “closing in,” although things won’t go as fast from now on.

Here is another shot of the doors. You are looking at the family room and master bedroom doors out onto the veranda.

While we were taking these shots, the sheet metal contractor arrived with the rest of the window and door pans—flashing necessary to install the doors and windows on the weather sensitive side of the house.

Abe took one last shot of the range hood frame. I need to order the guts ASAP—that is the insert and blower (which will go on the roof.)

There is a little uncertainty about out it will be finished between the insert (the stainless steel inside of the range hood with the screens and light) and the frame. We think we will get a stainless steel piece fabricated to cover up the gap, but will see what we think when the time comes.