August 3, 2008
progress is our middle name
Okay, this is crazy. Remember that crazy-ass 1970's kitchen? (I will refresh your memory.)
So we ripped all that stuff out, and after two trips to Ikea (the second of which we couldn't have done if my awesome parents hadn't come to visit), there's a hygenic wonderland. SO there are no doors on the cupboards, I need to paint over the sink where the Formica backsplash was, the window is still a piece of crap, and neither the sink nor the dishwasher are what you might call "hooked up", but damn, it looks good. And there's COUNTERTOP. Praise Jeebus. The toaster and the Kitchenaid are no longer in weird, weird places.
Also, I managed to strip (ha ha, I said "strip") and prime one of the cabinets. We dragged it upstairs and nestled it into place next to the ass-kickin' stove so I don't have to paint it outside (and we can get some COUNTERTOP.) Nobody wants bugs embedded in their cabinets.
All this progress is about to come to a screeching halt, though, as we have Casa registration and a family thing next weekend, Gen's wedding the next weekend, Kim's wedding after that, dress rehearsal for Casa after THAT, and then (you guessed it) Casa. So don't hold your breath for any more cool before-and-after pictures.
July 26, 2008
We Can Do It!
So Liz Stone came by yesterday to pick up some empty boxes (she and Damon are moving into our house on Kentucky Street, go figure) and she asked, "When are your cabinets arriving?" She seemed a bit stunned that they haven't actually been ordered yet. We were going to get sort of okay ones from the Home Despot, but they turned out to be more expensive than we wanted for cabinets we weren't absolutely crazy about. Then we thought we'd get Ikea (no, god, never again) cabinets, which are cheap enough to be able to toss out at a moment's contemplation (like when we get around to building proper period-appropriate cabinets, which is to say in, like, ten years.)
Nathan went out to the garage this afternoon and called for me to come out. He was standing there looking bemusedly at the old original kitchen cabinets which had been removed from the house and hung up in the garage in the Carter administration. We'd noticed them a couple of weeks before and wished they weren't in such crappy condition, because, HEY, THEY'RE FREE, and period, and we'd get to recycle and all that green stuff. Turns out, they're just dirty from having been in the garage for 30 years. They're actually in great shape.
There was much rejoicing. Once we'd recovered, we made our daily sojourn to the Despot and got some Citristrip. Dude, I love this shit. It makes a big honkin' mess, but it sure works.
This is a long-winded way of saying "This is why we didn't finish the kitchen floor today." That and we stopped work at 5:30 to to over to Tom and Chris' house for an ass-kickin' dinner party. But the bit of floor we got done DOES look fabulous. If it's done before rehearsal tomorrow it will be an Old-fashioned Christmas Miracle.
Posted by Kate at 11:20 PM
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July 24, 2008
movin' on up
Remember that time the previous owners of the house tore down the wall separating the kitchen from the service porch? Yeah, that was a bad choice. We put it back up.
It looks a little unkempt in this photo, but it's a good wall. It just needs another coat of paint and a frame for the door, and it will be spiffy.
I can't say we're "moved in", because the house is a maze of boxes, there's no kitchen floor, and there are new gigantic holes in the kitchen to patch and re-paint (the plumber had to put in a new gas line for the ass-kickin' Wedgewood stove), but we are moved out of the other place.
We do have a fridge, though. And booze.
July 13, 2008
Indiana Jones and the Soffit of Stupidity
There's the stupid soffit, lurking behind the tangle of wiring ("The Octopus") for the fluorescent lights that hung from the acoustic tiles. You can see the hole we poked in it to make sure there were no dead bodies hiding within.
Now that The Octopus is gone, you can really see it in all its stupid glory.
The soffit is no match for MJOLNIR!
Thor has a moment of panic when he realizes that his life-giving beer is not getting to his mouth for some reason.
Okay, so it doesn't look all that impressive now that it's gone, but TRUST me, it looks way less stupid. And it turns out there was no wiring or anything inside it, and it only marginally supported the cabinets, so it really was totally pointless. Good riddance.
Posted by Kate at 9:28 PM
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July 12, 2008
Demolition Man
Oh, hai, we bought a house. WOO HOO!
The second the ink was dry on the papers, we immediately started tearing up our new house.
Here's the the horrible kitchen this morning - behold the horrendous ceramic tile, falling-down acoustic ceiling, 70's cupboards, olive green dishwasher, and Satan's window treatments:
Also, here's the old stove after Nathan unceremoniously yanked it out of the wall. Isn't this the ugliest thing you've ever seen?
Here's Nathan pulling down the supports for Satan's window treatments:
Avast! The world's ugliest vinyl flooring was under that crappy tile! Begone, foul demon!
All that's left is the sink and the dishwasher. That's coming out at the very last second.
Rot. Rotten wood. In a nice big chunk of real estate under where the washing machine was and will go again in what was once and will soon again be the service porch. I can't tell you how thrilled we were to see it. Rot rot rot.
That's what we did today. Not too shabby. Now it is time for gin and sausage.
Posted by Kate at 7:53 PM | Comments (9)July 5, 2008
tick tick tick
Oh, hai, the house hasn't closed yet. My head is dangerously close to exploding.
We went over and tidied up our the bank's front yard. It still looks like shite, but at least it's tidy shite.
Isn't that much nicer? You can actually get into the back yard now without being molested by shrubbery. And we're close to choosing new paint colors. Also, we met some of our the bank's totally rockin' neighbors. That distracted me greatly from the imminent head explosion.
Cranky, going to bed.
Posted by Kate at 9:45 PM | Comments (3)July 2, 2008
Impatience
The house still hasn't closed yet. My head is about to explode. We can't really finish the packing here, and we can't really go start working on the new house, but we have to be out of this house in two weeks, and there's at least two weeks of work that's going to be done to the new house in order to have a functional kitchen.
AAAAAIIIEEEE. At least we have appliances.
Posted by Kate at 9:43 AM | Comments (5)June 24, 2008
insert joke about sausage here
Hey, dudes. Sorry about the no blogging for like two weeks. I've been busy. (I mis-typed that as "busty". Ha ha ha.) There was a bunch of Ren Faire and we're like, you know, buying a house, and there was a wedding to go to, and I like, got a job.
NO, that is not a typo. I got a job. Me. Lazy McSnoozerson. I wasn't even looking for one. It sort of fell into my lap. I'm not going to tell you where it is because I haven't asked my boss if it's okay if I blog endlessly about all the crazy customers we get at this cool place in Napa that makes fancy sausages, but you might be able to figure it out if you were a smarty pants.
All I'm sayin' is that I smell an awful lot like really good beef jerky right now. Yesterday I smelled like thyme and duck confit, and last Thursday you could detect my eau de bacon across the room. It's awesome, but it is SERIOUSLY interfering with my knitting and tv-watching.
Posted by Kate at 5:46 PM | Comments (6)