Momplex

We are rockin' today at the Momplex.

Do you ever wonder what happens between your dryer and the vent outside? We are in the utility installing phase of the Momplex. We are starting with who has the biggest pipes and working our way down to the smallest. First up, we installed 6" diameter piping for the ventilation system. To get the ceiling insulated to hold heat, we've already installed bathroom and kitchen vents as well. Next up is the dryer vent. And of course, since this is the Momplex, we gotta do everything twic

In between working on the dollhouse, changing lots of diapers, and burning dinner ... we've been up to something else.

Momplex Unit A.  Man do things ever slow down when you have a baby in the house, don't they?  

We finished up Momplex Unit B and got Grandma who likes to sew moved in last winter.  

Unit B has a garage almost twice the size of Unit A, and there's storage under the landing (Unit A has the utility room in the garage and a pressure tank under

Whether you buy kitchen cabinets or you DIY them yourself (I'm totally on team DIY here!) I think the biggest difference maker in how professional looking your kitchen cabinet ends up appearing is in the tiny little details.  In other words, after you hang your cabinets, you aren't done quite yet.

After installing all the kitchen cabinets for the Momplex Vanilla Kitchen, there's a few little things that will make a big difference to take care of.

The most obvious one is finis

Do you remember last year when we poured the slab for the Momplex, that we used up the extra concrete to fill up these sonotubes?  (UPDATE: Thanks to all of you, I now know those are not spelled saunatubes!  hehe!)

Well, today, they are going to become more than just an obstacle to avoid in front of the Momplex.

Those posts are the foundations for the little roofs!

And today we are going anchor beams into those concrete fil

Grandma-who-likes-to-sew took a little trip a bit back, so we hijacked her side of the Momplex and got to work on a project we didn't quite get finished up before moving day.

Downstairs, where the stairs land, between the garage and the bonus room (which will hopefully someday become Grandma's craft and sewing room), is a little area that will make a perfect mudroom.

In Alaska, where coats and boots are used like shirts and shoes, a mudroom

So what is the most intimidating part of building your own kitchen cabinets? 

Apart from the huge scope of the entire project, I'd have to say building and installing easy to use drawers can seem very intimidating.  Kitchen drawers get used dozens of times a day, so you want drawers that are both easy to use and will hold up over years of use.

For the Momplex white kitchen, we decided to use a drawer side/slide combo system, call Metabox drawers by Blum.

Except for a very brief stint on the scaffolding system, we've been working in a giant hole in the ground all summer. This giant hole in the ground to be exact.Depressing, I know.Especially since outside that hole, it looks like this. Well, it looks like this in the summer anyway.So you can imagine how antsy I've been to get out of that giant hole in the ground and start working upstairs in the Momplex.  I've waited all summer for this stage of the building process.  Hooray, to

FACEBOOK PAGE UPDATE: On March 14, 2014, our Facebook Page was hacked, I was deleted as the admin, and the page name was changed.  The hackers then started using the page to promote their own business.  Finally, the page name has been changed (to Ana White) and the permalink has been restored back to www.facebook.com/knockoffwood.  Unfortunately, the hackers also deleted all content on the site, and this cannot be restored. I am very sad to see so many of your photos and questions

Have you been wondering what we are going to do about the exposed plywood on the gable ends of the Momplex?