Oops!

After re-scheduling and waiting and going around and around with the appliance people from IKEA, we finally got the repair technician out.  And guess what - there was nothing wrong with the vent hood!  oops -- we actually had a bad connection elsewhere, and the full voltage was not getting to the hood.  How embarrassing - and it cost us 78 dollars to have the guy point out that we needed to check out electrical connections or replace the breaker.  Luckily, it wasn't the breaker, just a bad connection in the last light that we tied the hood into.

It looks pretty awesome, and it even works, too!  LOL !  We also had the GE repair person out - the  convection settings weren't working properly for us -- he instructed us to run the self-clean feature twice - we did it once, and it's worked great ever since.  We just need to keep an eye on it so we get it taken care of completely while it remains under warranty.  He did tell Dale that there was another person who was having a similar problem, and the 2xcleaning did the trick. we'll keep on top of that.

In other news, we've finally moved on to patching up the drywall.  We spent the weekend piecing it all togher, and Dale did two sessions of filling, so now it's ready to get a nice smooth top coat, then we can paint.  Here are some shots of various problem areas:

Those are all 'before' shots -- they all have some fill done.  I also painted the walls with a coat of the wall color, but I'm not happy with it -- too minty.  I want more of a sage green, so I need to go and get another gallon.  Not much color in this room with all the tile and cabinets, but I want something that projects some warmth.

In the meantime, I'm going to have to figure out what to do with our entry now that the pocket door is gone. We've got a big blank wall that we aren't used to!  I am looking at various ideas for built-ins, some type of mudroom approach.  Here are a couple of favorites on  my pinterest board:

 

Love the bench, hooks and shelves.  Not sure if we have enough space to make the shelves deep enough to hold baskets, and besides, we have a ton of stuff for the shelves, so this is my front runner.

I'm thinking a cabinet centered on the wall might look just as nice - build it in, but let it look like a freestanding piece.  I like the one above for that, with the arched top and the crown molding.

Finally- this one has no cubbies, but a nice shelf on top to place objects or framed paintings.  So now, I just need to figure out what I want!