Filed under: Uncategorized
We went to Atlanta this weekend instead of waiting ’til later in the week…because we wanted to, and we could.
It was produstive. I found a pair of pendant lamps that will go well with the lighted pot rack, and lotsa fiddly little extra stuff at Crate and Barrel- a set of nesting bowls in many colors, a stainless steel pitcher, kitchen towels in various colors but all with a little bit of red like the walls will be.
I also got to spend Quality Time with my favorite person whom quality time is hard to come by recently.
The real work begins today, with the tearing out and reconstructing of the laundry area. The real mess commences.
Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m sticking my head out of the hole briefly, because I have an unaccountable several minutes while the chicken marinates (lemon juice, garlic, cumin) and before people start coming in from work.
The kitchen project progresses at a snails pace. There’s this moment in time, like when you’re 7 months pregnant, starting to feel uncomfortable, and it seems an eternity before the baby is born, and that’s where we’re at right now. The stove has come, and is installed, albeit without cabinetry. The cabinets are due in some time around the 11th of July. Sweet Daddio wants to go ahead and take out the existing cabinets, so we can repair the drywall, paint and so on. I am loathe to be without a functional kitchen for so long but I see the wisdom in his thinking. Right now about half the kitchen stuff is sorta organized in a heap in the dining room. We have a couple of folding tables that can do double duty as counters, but…I see it in my head, this finished project, but I ain’t feelin’ it in my heart so much, at the moment. It’s that waiting time…I do not wait well.
We’re going to Atlanta, just the 2 of us, on July 3. He (theoretically) has the week off, but it never works out that way in reality. His Boss (ptui!) announced that Plant 2 will be doing inventory Monday-Wednesday the week of shutdown, and SD being the person that he is, will not ask his people to work if he’s not there working beside them. Will the Boss (ptui!) be there? heck no. So much for a week off. He doesn’t even get holiday pay for it. But! We’re going to Atlanta, just the 2 of us, because we cashed in all our bonus points and have Home Depot and Crate and Barrel gift cards to spend on the New Kitchen! Woo! We’re going to the Design Expo to find just the right pendant lights, and C&B for the fiddly stuff- towels, mixing bowls in the right shade of red, that kind of thing. Oh sure, I could look online for everything, but I like holding stuff in my hand before I buy it, plus, it means we get to go to Atlanta, just the 2 of us.
So there we are, for today. Howdy y’all.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Life is closing in on me a bit, just now. Between the kitchen remodel, teenagers and their issues, Sweet Daddio’s work and it’s issues, I don’t have the energy to write. My mind is otherwise occupied. It’s not a bad thing, I’m not having some deep existential crisis, I’m just having *life* and all it’s *stuff*.
I’ll be back, let me get this kitchen thing going, the teenagers dealt with, and SD taken care of, then I’ll have time for blogging.
Filed under: Uncategorized
The kitchen has a 12 inch bulkhead, 7 feet long, that runs over the area where the fridge and hutch will be. I’ve decided to stencil a saying of some sort along the bulkhead, in 3 inch high letters. I’ve narrowed it down to these so far:
Tell me what you eat, I’ll tell you who you are. ~Anthelme Brillat-Savarin
All sorrows are less with bread. ~Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote
There is no such thing as a little garlic. ~A. Baer
Psalm 59:15
They wander about for food and howl if not satisfied.
Proverbs 9:5
“Come, eat my food and drink the wine I have mixed.
Proverbs 9:17
“Stolen water is sweet; food eaten in secret is delicious!”
Do you have any short and to the point sayings, maybe from your heritage, or something you remember someone saying about food or cooking? I’m open to suggestions.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Why is it I’m so much happier when things are a-changing? I love a home improvement project. They make me smile. The process is as good as the end result, almost. Right now I’m getting the wallpaper out. It should have never been put up, it’s that ugly. I almost wish the former owner’s wife, with her pretensions at home decorating, would come by when we’re done and I can show her what a proper kitchen looks like.
Ok that was a really catty thing to say. She probably thought the butt-ugly wallpaper was the height of tasteful decorating, back in the day, and maybe it was. But it’s not now.
The good news is, the wallpaper is coming off easily, once I got past that one wall where there were 27 layers of everything. Sweet Daddio has declared it a total loss, and we’re just going to cut the whole bit out and put up a fresh piece of drywall. I can do that, did you know I know how to install drywall? I do. Our first house was totally paneled and we replaced every bit with drywall and I did ALL the finishing on it, so yeah, I know drywall.
The only wall paper I lack at this point is the bit behind the fridge, and that won’t take long. I’ll get one of the boys to give me a hand getting the 2 tons of cookbooks down from on top of it, then it will just need rolling out for half an hour or so.
Yay! I’d much rather look at bare-naked walls than butt ugly wallpaper. yes indeed.
So we bought the cabinets and the new (dual fuel! Convection! practically cooks the food all by itself!) stove, so since that’s in the works officially, I started ripping out wallpaper. well, chipping out wallpaper, a square inch at a time.
Now, I’ve done this before. I despise wallpaper so usually if we buy a house that has it, it’s the first thing to go. Sweet Daddio despises bare naked walls, so in the interest of marital harmony I have refrained from wallpaper removal activites until such a time as the walls will be naked for a minimal period. I know how to remove it. I know what works and what’s hype.
So there I am today, all ready to rip and shred with my Pirana tool and my spray bottle of dishwasher detergent in water. And yet, unlike in the past when the wallpaper all but lept off the walls with my treatment, this ugly mauve and grey stuff refused to budge. I had to bully it off, and even then it was most reluctant.
Why? Why is it being recalcitrant? Why am I gouging the wall in attempts to remove it’s homely self?
I’ll tell you why. It goes like this:
There’s the drywall, like normal walls, everybody has it. There’s a layer of ugly grey and mauve wallpaper. “Fine” you say, “So what?” Well. On top of the wallpaper is a layer of plaster. On top of the plaster is a layer of mauve paint. On top of that is THE SAME UGLY WALLPAPER as on the first layer! But only in places- not the whole thing! Ridiculous!
Whaaaat?!
Now I have to go get some drywall compound to fix the gouges I made in frustration with the decorating tendencies of the previous homeowner.
I think I’ll fix me a drink instead, and get the drywall compound tomorrow.
Filed under: Good grief
Forget the seeded glass on the upper cabinets. $900 more than clear glass, they are, for 12 1-foot square bits. that’s the cost of the flooring in the dining room. I’ll go with clear and keep pretty things behind them. Agnes McCalvinox would disapprove of clear less than of seeded, I’m sure.
