Category Archives: Home wreckers

Rain rain go Away (and more kitchen)

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Like the rest of the east coast, we are DRENCHED. Ugh. Our neighbor across the street called in the fire department this morning to help her pump out her basement. The guys down the street are pumping out their house. It is wet here!

So despite the rain, we are surviving. I bring you days 2 & 3 of the kitchen. Today we should have the floor installed, but he hasn’t shown up yet, so… I might email and ask about that!

Note how they kindly reconnected the stove for us so we can actually use it!

Day 2: Rough electrical (for under cabinet lighting)- set up wires
for all new items cleared out old switches and plumbing Removed giant
drain pipe under sink, removed heating vent that was IN the pantry, moved the gas pipe for the stove and put in an ice maker line for future consideration.


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Day 3: Rough plastering.


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ETA: The flooring guys is here!

Kitchen-Day 1 Before * and after

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photos from day 1. (and T-1) Sorry they are so dark. I blame Jay!

Looking towards the main counter
 

 

From the dining room

 

So called "eat in" area
 

 

Same location as photo 2 

 

The main counter where the sink goes 

 

* Okay- You may be saying WHAT? the original looks pretty dark good. Yes, it looked good BUT it didn’t function. Nasty cabinets that had been resurfaced. New counter. Shelves with oil soaked in them and smells of spices. Doors that fell off and the cabinets opened to one another. Icky!

No title- because I can’t think of one

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Yeah- the wit is dead, or in hibernation.

a few updates in bullet form:

  • Went to the chiropractor Friday afternoon. Turns out he DISLOCATED my bicep tendon on Tuesday. Yes, Gross. And when he put it back, I nearly passed out from the pain. I fired him this morning. My neck/shoulder is now tense. My bicep muscles are achy, most likely from the strain of being out of place. I am in pain and pissed.
  • Awoke to the sound of a dumpster being dropped in our driveway. On Saturday afternoon, we got an email that they could start demolition on the kitchen Tuesday (today!!!!) Yippie! We used Saturday night and Sunday to finish the clean up of the kitchen.
  • Soleil and Luna decided to experiment Saturday evening. We let them have dinner while watching a movie downstairs. We use the gas fireplace enclosure to warm the area. They flicked milk onto the fireplace because "it sizzled!". It took a few tries to get the truth out of them. And it took a good glass scraper to clean up the burnt milk on the enclosure glass.
  • Busy work week. So I will try to keep up and post demo photos.Smiley

 

Where the green grass grows

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I sometimes think of those golden years, when we’ll sit out in our non-existing front porch, look over the beautiful lawn and sip mojitos in our rocking chairs. I know which families are the retired people in our town, they have the nice looking lawns. The grass is always the perfect height, perhaps being mowed twice a week. There are never signs of grubs in the yard, weeds are never to be seen and nary a dandelion will pop its seeds.

This, is NOT our yard. And certainly NOT this year.

Over the Thanksgiving weekend, our new neighbors came over after we piled several boards and a plastic tarp into their car. We set up a 40 by 20 foot ice rink in our front yard. It is currently half filled (because the yard slopes-slightly). Tomorrow, we expect some rain, so that and another hour of the hose should help. Over the weekend, we expect some serious freezing weather.

The hope is that by Christmas, the ice will have frozen and the kids (all 4 of them) will be able to skate during the weekend days.

Screw the grass, I would rather have the kids in our yard getting some exercise!
 

Archeological Dig

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I am going through my cabinets, cleaning out into boxes what we need to move. We are keeping some things available like the pans I need to make treats for a party this week, and the pots and pans we use everyday.

But the majority of this is going on a dig. I find things from years ago. Things like the garlic press that Jay and I took from the house he lived in all of graduate school. I only lived there one year. He lived there 6. It was finally being sold, so we moved to a cottage that I lived in 1 year before. We were the last two people there, so we took all of the kitchen stuff that had been left in the house along with any furniture left by former housemates that we could. We still have the coffee table down stairs that took a hit when the 40 gallon fish tank exploded on it 17 years ago. I refinished it 12 years ago. Still good

It is weird running through our history. I forget that Jay and I have been together so long (since 1992!).

Okay, break over, back to cleaning the kitchen!

 

BTW- for those concerned about my telescope- We are in a very stable orbit. We launched AFTER the ruling that all satellites must be launched in a decaying orbit to reenter and burn in the atmosphere, but we got grandfathered. We go 1/3 of the way to the moon and orbit the earth once every 63 hours. We cannot be serviced like Hubble, so our project was designed for many years. We are in year 10 of the mission and recently were (or are in the process) of being approved for 12. We have started work on studying the 20-25 year mission life. In theory, we can go 50 or more years, with proper planning. At some point, we will run out of consumables (the fuel for the thrusters, etc) but for now? We are going strong!

Kitchen update

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So we picked out the tiles for the backsplash and the quartz countertop. Then we found out from our contractor that the corner cabinet was damaged in shipping. This cabinet has to go in first, so the project is delayed a week. He dropped off the wood for the floor, so it can acclimate to our environment

We bought the faucet and soap dispenser for the sink. We are looking at different lighting options.

I’ll be emptying the pantry this weekend to sort from throw out, keep and donate!

 

Panic sets in (and a ray of sunshine)

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So… I got an email yesterday.

"Dear Nance,

Your project came up in the morning meeting today and we’d like to start demolition Monday Dec1. Please let us know if this fits with your schedule. You still have a meeting on Wednesday with E to pick out counters and backsplash tiles.

Thanks

Your kitchen guys"

OMG OMG OMG OMG! Monday? As in a week? As in My in-laws (who are stuck in Scranton PA with a surprise blizzard) are still going to be here Monday? As in I have NO BOXES to put our dishes in? And we haven’t ordered the faucet and soap dispenser yet? Nor the dishwasher?

FREAK!

 However, before this shocker, I got a call from my dad. Before Luna was growing, he had a scary falling and weaving episode that landed him in the hospital. At first, stroke was on everybody’s mind. The next day, he lost his hearing in his left ear. Just gone. All he hears is tinitus.  So, while he was learning how to walk again because they believe a virus got in his ear and damaged something to ruin both hearing and balance (no sign of stroke damage), he was getting pretty damn depressed. We told him about Luna at 6 weeks, something we weren’t planning on, to cheer him up.

Yesterday, he had a followup appointment with his audiologist. Last week, he tried a hearing aid and he could hear a whopping 2% in the bad ear. This week, the audiologist tried a new type, some kind of digital one with processing and dad could hear 80% of the words! 80% people! It’s expensive ($2400-for one ear), but they are going for it! How cool is that?
 

Who needs two lungs anyway?

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My saga of the viral infected lung continues. I hack away at work and home. Last night, I had a coughing fit in Soleil’s room and she told me "Don’t throw up on the floor like I did, mom! That’s gross!" Gee, thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.

Did I ever tell you guys that we are going ahead with the kitchen stuff? Oh yeah. We bought the microwave/venthood combo last week since it was on a major sale at Sears. We will need to order the dishwasher soon. Then we have the faucet and the lights to figure out. The rest? The guys will work out with us. Very exciting. We signed the deal on October 31st. The cabinets were ordered that day. The broom closet I wanted ended up being 6 inches wider than expected. We hemmed about it and decided to just expand the pantry instead of forcing an over large broom closet.

We need to select the quartz countertops and the tile backsplash soon. Once the cabinets are in, they will start the work! Wee! SO excited.

 Strangely, this is not worrying me in the slightest. We pulled the money we would need for this project out of the market when we signed things so the last few weeks of free fall have not affected the funds. I am just plain excited. I was afraid that I would worry and panic and everything else. But I am not!

 When we hear word of everything in place, I think we’ll start posting photos!

 

Kitchens and bitchens

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Oh yes, it is finally that time. Jay and I are reviewing people to help us with our kitchen.

We had our first guy come in yesterday. His bid, to replace 2 cabinets, 1 pantry and add an island (with 2 cabinets)? $12,000! But if we signed a contract today he could do it for $10K. Oh you negotiator you! You think a measly $2,000 will get us to ignore other bids? And you told us to keep the kitchen as is and most of the work is the Island and a few roll out drawers? Oh, you are so cute!

Jay listened and said, "Well, if you had told us that you would be offering a discount, we would have booked you last. But we have another person coming out this week." The man tried to explain that getting 2-3 bids on a project is a waste of time. They are not statistically significant. Oh, please don’t argue statistics with us. Not Gaussian nor Poisson (small number stats). We know stats. We have also researched the bidding process. We aren’t idiots.

We told him, sorry, getting other bids. We also pointed out that other groups may have different ideas. We wanted to explore other ideas of what to do also. He seemed uncomfortable with that. He was also focused on colors. Who the hell cares about colors right away? Function should take precedence. Any idiot would know that!

 Finally, Jay said, "Listen, after our other bids, we’ll get back to you. And we know you can do this for $10K. Maybe if you have a slow week and you want to fit us in, we can work something out." The man laughed nervously and replied "Well, we’ll see what I can do!"
Jay repeated that we haven’t got a set timetable for doing this. The man said "well, even Christmas week?" And Jay said "sure! If you want your guys working instead of getting paid for doing nothing, we can do Christmas week"(the advantage of being Jewish!)

In one sense, I love getting a chance to play the game back with these guys. On the other hand, I wish this wasn’t just a huge jerk your chain thing.

Friday morning is our next bid.

 

Open letter to former owner of my house

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To the former owner of my house:

Hi! How ya doing? Great, just great. Why don’t we grab a cup of coffee, shall we? Hey, remember when you decided to wallpaper that bedroom, the one in the corner? Yeah, that one. I have to say that the color choices of the paper always seemed, well, odd. A nice pink bottom with yellow top? I mean the flowers matched and all, but hey, what can I say, it’s not my style. My 6 year old agreed with me. We decided it was time to paint her room. First, I had to remove that wallpaper. I remember when we first moved here how proud the agent was to tell us that you had wallpapered every fricken room yourself. Thanks. I hate wallpaper. Anyway, I had to remove the paper first.

Surprise, surprise! The top? The color I always thought was yellow? Yeah, that turned out to be a light cream color. It must have been your chain smoking husband* that turned the walls yellow. Ick. How do I know this? because you used a good 4 INCHES of extra paper at the border of the two colors! Seriously, this was a royal pain in the butt to get this off the walls! And next time you prep walls for wallpapering? Do you think you could removed the glue from the PREVIOUS wallpaper job? Ugh. The wall against the bathroom had 2 layers of glue on it. My arm is killing me. How many poor horses became glue for that wall anyway?

Sigh. At least it is done. The yellow (ick ick ick) and pink room is now purple. Ah…. without the smoke stains. Much better!

 

Spacemom

 

* We know the husband was a chain smoker. He kept an oxygen tank downstairs and the agent told us everything about the family when we closed. And the fact that there was pristine wallpaper in the shape of a cross on our bedroom wall when we moved in. The yellowish paper in our room was quite…icky