Kitchen Remodel: Days 10 and 11

Here are the highlights of the 10th and 11th days of remodeling the kitchen based upon what I know, which isn't much since I've been stuck working on the computer and at the office:

My husband was very sore and putting a lot of ice on his bum knee after a week straight of crawling around, lifting heavy objects, and getting little rest.  He had planned on resting on Monday, and then leveling the cabinets for the counter top appointment on Tuesday afternoon.  However, we got a call at 7:00 AM on Monday from the counter top people requesting that we change our appointment to Monday since they would be in the area and it would be more convenient for them.  Ummmm, these counter top people have been a bit of a pain since we started this process.  They are always looking for ways to make their job easier on them and not really taking the customer into consideration, so my husband said no, that he needed the extra day to finish up with the leveling of the cabinets.  Good for him.

Our designer warned us not to level the cabinets by cutting off the bottom, because we'll end up having to cut shorter and shorter until there's nothing left to cut.  He said to just wedge the lower parts up with wood.  It turns out we have an unlevel, wavy kitchen floor, so the leveling process took a long time.  It wasn't just a matter of leveling front to back or side to side, but corner to corner too.

I was looking at the space for the range and saying that I didn't think there was enough room for it, so we needed to push the cabinets down further along the wall.  My husband said he measured it, and it fits.  Well, it turns out that after he screwed the lower cabinets into the wall, he couldn't get the range to fit.  Believe it or not, I do know what I'm talking about 99% of the time.  It's just that no one wants to listen to me.  So, he had to sand down the cabinets on each side and squeeze the range in between them.

The counter tops should be ready in 2 to 3 weeks.  All of the sudden it hit us that we are supposed to be hosting a 50th anniversary celebration and wedding vow renewal for my in-laws in a week and a half!  We're not going to have a kitchen!  People are going to come to our house and not have places to sit because our food and pots and pans are piled up all over the couch, the chairs, the tables, and the floor.  How embarrassing. 

Hopefully, we can start using the cabinets before the counter top arrives, but there's still a lot of work putting up the last couple of wall cabinets, hanging doors, putting in drawers, and whatnot, and with my husband back at his job, me at my job, and our son in school, no one is available to do the work.  We've known that we had this anniversary celebration scheduled in October all year, but just never made the connection how close we are to October.  Until yesterday, it still felt like summer.

 

Stupendous Sunday

I got a chance to ride Lostine on Sunday. Don't let this sweet face fool you. She made it clear from the start that she wasn't going to cooperate with me, so I rode her hard. I put her mind to work right away and steered strong with my legs while maintaining consistent contact with her mouth. Usually, I don't like to hold the reins as tight as my equitation instructor taught me, but this was a case in which I knew she planned to buck me off, so I had to keep her head up and keep her body in my control.

This time I put Swat around the bottom and sides of the horse's eyes, a thin strip down their faces, and a little on their legs to give them some relief from the flies since it seems to be the only product that works. I usually only use Swat around injuries, but I wanted to have a pleasant ride on Lostine without her getting agitated about the flies. I also took Mary Olsen's suggestion of keeping all four legs wrapped to keep the flies off. It worked. Now I've just got to get one of those crocheted tassel bonnets. Does anyone know where I can get one?

After our ride, Lostine had to openly celebrate that I was off her back...

Ahhhh, that feels better.

It was a gorgeous day and with all the neighbors either out of town or at church, I had the entire air space to myself. Years ago I used to sit out on my patio and read and write. All of that came to a screeching halt when my nosy neighbors moved in next door and made me feel uncomfortable by coming out to stare at me. Today I was able to sit out on my patio for over an hour soaking in the sun and reading a good novel in complete comfort and privacy.

At dusk I walked outside and saw that the nosy neighbors' car still wasn't in their driveway, so I started talking baby talk to my horses, calling them horsies and asking them if they want their din-din. They all turned to look at me, and when they separated, I was shocked to see strangers standing on my property petting my horses. It was a man and a woman holding a baby. They were standing right between my NO TRESPASSING and PRIVATE DRIVE - PLEASE STAY OUT signs. They quickly scurried off when they saw me, so they obviously knew they weren't supposed to be there.

I saw them the night before on my friend's property watching her horses while she was out of town. I kept an eye on them since they were strangers and trespassing on her property. They looked like they were just out for an evening stroll and trying to entertain their baby with the horses, but you never know around here. They could be staking out the neighborhood. They seemed to take great interest in the cabinets on our driveway. The man saw me sitting in my side yard and gawked at me as he walked down the road.

You know, I like to go to a park that is lined with the backyards of houses, but I don't stare at people who are in their backyards as I walk past. I respect their privacy and mind my own business by looking straight ahead in the direction that I'm walking. I don't understand why so many people around here feel the need to stare at me when I'm on my private property. It's just plain rude. I wanted so bad to drop my pants and give the guy something to really stare at, but I contained myself.

Since these people showed up two nights in a row, I'm thinking that they are either visiting relatives in the neighborhood and will be gone soon, or they lost their jobs and had to move in with relatives, in which case my only hope to get rid of them will be either asking them to stay off my property or hoping they get jobs soon.

One of the issues I have with people inviting themselves onto my property is that they send my dogs into hysterics. I have a problem with one neighbor who complains when my dogs bark, so I don't want anyone triggering a barkfest. Between these strangers taking their evening stroll up my private road, which is clearly marked as a private road, and the hot air balloonists floating over my house in the early mornings, there has been a lot of barking going on lately.

Also, I've been finding cigarette butts around my barn this past week, so if these people have been visiting for more than just the past couple of nights, that means they are responsible for the litter on my property too. My horses will eat anything up off the ground that doesn't look like dirt. I don't need to find out what happens to their digestive tracts when they ingest cigarettes!

Every time we get newcomers into this neighborhood, they seem to make a beeline for my land and horses, ignoring my signs and right to privacy along the way. I do have a couple of neighbors who I trust to come over to pet my horses, and that's because I've already had a talk with them about petting at their own risk and not feeding the horses. However, until I have that understanding with people, I don't want them hanging out near my barn. The fact that these latest trespassers don't know me, yet disrespected my signs, makes me not like them already.

Day 9: A Glimpse of the Future

Soon we will be able to take our groceries out of these bags and store them in our new cabinets...

Soon our new range and microwave will be hooked up...

This is a glimpse of the rounded extension to our kitchen...

It feels bigger already.  This is the southeast corner of our kitchen...

My husband had to cut a lot of holes in the cabinetry to get all the sink pipes to fit.  We have to snake them around through other cabinets to reach the dishwasher and refrigerator...

Our trash compactor had to be relocated next to the sink.  I think I'll like it better there.  Our designer tried to talk us out of keeping the trash compactor, but it is one of those things we can't live without.  We were without one for over a month when it broke down, and I had to take the garbage out twice a day.  I can think of a million things I'd rather be doing with my time.  With a trash compactor, we only take out the trash twice a week.

Too bad we can't cram all this garbage into the trash compactor...

I did help today by stacking the cardboard in the back of our pickup truck.  All the cardboard triangles that looked like exotic buildings required three extra-large lawn bags to get them off our grass.  This is officially the last day of my husband's vacation, and he's obviously not done yet.  The counter top people are coming by on Tuesday to make a template and take measurements.  My husband may have to extend his vacation with a sore back day to finish the basics of the job.  I suspect that the doors won't get put on until next weekend.  I should be able to help with that too.

Sunday Stills: Signs of Fall

Rotten apples beside rabbit feces...

Bloomin' sagebrush, headaches, and sneezes...

Something other than green in the treeses...

Browning seedpods that do what they pleases...

Dogs that bark when someone teases...

Like voices floating in the breezes...

What About the Horses?

With the kitchen remodel going on, I haven't posted much about the horses. I gave Gabbrielle a new, smaller wrap for her knee today. I was disappointed to see that she was still bleeding nearly two weeks after her accident. She has a pink bubble sticking out of a hole on the side of her knee. I figure it is either herniated ligament poking through her skin or a blister from the bandage rubbing her.

She was pretty good about letting me cut off the old wrap and apply the new one. She just didn't like having the first layer of bandage placed over her knee. I had to get my son to hold her and cover her eyes. I ran out of Elastikon and had to go to the feed store to buy more. I nearly passed out to see that is costs $14 a roll, which lasts about a week.

There's this man at the feed store who I wish I could avoid when I go there, because sometimes I just want to browse, and he's one of these salespeople who blocks your path and insists on helping you. I asked him to just point me toward the veterinary supplies, and he wanted to know why. I said my horse injured herself and I needed more wrapping materials. He asked what kind of injury it was. I know he was just trying to determine if my horse needed to see a vet, so I told him, "The vet already treated her and gave me some supplies, but I ran out of a specific type of wrap. I can't remember what the name of it is, but if you let me see the vet supplies I will recognize it."

At that point he gave up and led me to the aisle with the vet supplies. I've been shopping there for years, but they rearrange the location of their items so often that I do have to look around a bit before I can find things.

Guess who I rode today after a month of no activity, attention or training?

I learned that riding a horse at the height of fly season is not easy. Bombay kept getting frustrated with flies landing on him. I had sprayed him thoroughly and wiped fly spray on his face before riding, but it obviously didn't have any impact. He kept throwing his head around and crow-hopping to try to get the flies off his face and legs. At one point he was having such a fit over flies that he nearly ran us into the railing. I've decided that I'm going to invest in some face tassels and a riding crop with tassels to help the horses out. I did use my riding crop to brush flies of his head, neck, sides, legs and rump. Thankfully, he understood that I was just trying to help him and wasn't signaling him to go faster or threatening him in any way.

After our ride I fed all the horses carrots. I got tired of being mugged, so I threw the bag of carrots on the ground, but these idiots still thought I had carrots in my hands...

The bag is right behind you, Dufuses.

I moved the bag of carrots into the sun to find out if they could see it better, and Gabbrielle found it...

Now Lostine found the bag of carrots...

Lostine snatched up the bag an tried to make off with it. I took it out of her mouth before she could swallow any plastic. She's really good about letting me rub plastic bags all over her face and body...

Gabbrielle tries to be brave and will let the bag near her, but backs away as soon as I try to touch her with it...

Then there's Bombay who won't let that plastic bag anywhere near him...

He's giving me his wary eye.

Day 8: Hanging More Cabinets and Cutting Tile

My husband uses a long strip of wood and a level to create a baseline for the bottom of the wall cabinets.  He wasn't wild about having to put more nail holes in the wall, but this helps to keep the cabinets straight and even, and also holds up the back of them so that all he needs is one person to hold the front of the cabinets along with some clamps while he power drills in the screws.

Our western wall is hung.

See that long strip of wood leaning against the cabinets?  That's the wood that was used to line them up.  Our old cabinets didn't even come out that far.  You can see the mark on the ceiling of where they stopped.  I wanted to elongate our kitchen and place more cabinets where there used to be a telephone desk.  I chose rounded cabinets since the dining table is right next to that area and I didn't want anyone getting up from the table to knock their head or hip on a sharp corner.

With the number of challenges we've faced with this project, the one thing that has really worked in our favor is the weather.  We've been able to store the overflow of cabinets on our driveway without worrying about rain or snow.  However, that's not going to last.  Rain is expected at the end of the weekend, so we are now in a race against time to get all those cabinets into the house.

Mrs. Mom suggested setting a booby trap for nosy neighbors or anyone who comes too close for comfort to our cabinet stockpile.  The quickest trap I could set up was my motion-sensor insult-hurling lawn gnome.  I set him outside amongst the boxes to scare the beegeezus out of anyone snooping around.  He's got one loud voice.  In the dark someone wouldn't see him and would assume that a real person was standing right next to them.

My husband also had to spend a good portion of the day cutting the existing flooring, because the new cabinets stick out further from the wall than the old cabinets. He put a brick-cutting blade on his power saw and cut right through the tile. We are planning on getting new flooring, but not until we've had a chance to recover financially from the cabinetry, counter top, refrigerator, range, and microwave expenses.

I haven't done much to help other than to pick up some pizza for lunch, wrap up the leftover pizza in tinfoil and put it in the refrigerator. I planned to be more involved in the project, but I'm limited in the lifting I can do and there's really only enough room in that kitchen for one or two people to do one thing at a time.

Our Asian temples or Japanese pagodas are now more like scattered Egyptian pyramids on out front lawn...

Day 7: Upper Cabinets

I love my old sink. I like having two compartments, with one of them large enough to soak pots and pans. So, I nearly had a heart attack when my husband told me that our old sink wouldn't fit into the new cabinetry basin, and off he went to purchase a new sink. First off, our cabinets came with a free sink, but we turned the offer down because we liked our old one. Therefore, it seemed to be a huge waste of money to have to buy a sink after all of that. Secondly, I've seen the sinks that are available around here, and none of them impressed me.

Fortunately, our designer was working in the store today and he told my husband to just knock out the center bar from the cabinet basin, and our old sink will fit. That idea saved the day.

My husband and son installed the first couple of cabinets minus the doors...

...only to discover another conundrum. Our ceiling is at a lower than standard height, which will leave us with only 18-inches of space between the counter top and the bottom of the upper cabinets. We're not even sure if we can fit a coffee maker under there. Because of the way our house is constructed, raising the ceiling is not an option. Now we know why the previous cabinets were custom made.

Sometimes all you can say is "Oh well."

Day 6: Odds and Ends

I feel kind of silly reporting on the progress with the kitchen remodel each day since I've done absolutely nothing to help recently. We've got another major deadline at work this weekend, so I can't get away from my computer. As soon as we set a date for this kitchen remodel project, it was inevitable that my company would schedule another death march. That's my life story. I can't make any personal plans thanks to my job owning every minute of my day.

My husband got up early to paint over the primer with our light apricot color, and then a big truck pulled into our driveway to deliver our new range.

I can't wait to use it. There was a problem with the gas pipes sticking too far out from the wall. They used to stick out underneath a counter stove top within a cabinet, but you can't push a range up against the wall with the gas pipe sticking out that far. Also, the location of the range is different enough from the location of our old stove top that the pipes needed to be relocated. Either that or we have to rearrange our designer's original concept of where the cabinets will go.

So, my husband went to the hardware store to get new gas pipe parts. He shut off the gas before working on it, obviously. He's still working on it now. I'm praying that nothing will break like the water pipe did when he was trying to install a new water filter. Messing with the infrastructure of the house (gas, electricity, plumbing...) makes me very nervous.

My husband also made a trip to the dump in an effort to start cleaning up the mess in our yard. I've mentioned that we don't like having to leave some of the cabinets out on the driveway during the night. We have some in the garage, but not all of them will fit. So, we usually block off our driveway with chains and park up against the cabinets to make someone work for it if they plan on stealing anything.

Last night when my husband and son were driving home after dark, they noticed that the motion-sensor light had been triggered before they turned into the driveway. Someone or something would have had to walk right up to our garage where the cabinets are sitting in order to trigger that light. We suspected our nosy neighbor. She always comes out for her nightly creep as soon as it gets dark enough that she thinks people can't see her.

These pictures are for the D-Meister. Don't these packaging pieces look like Asian temples?

Or at least a cool sculpture?

Day 5: Naked Kitchen

It was a busy day, but it seems that so little has been done. The part of the kitchen walls that won't have the backsplash or cabinets in front of it got sanded and primered. My husband took inventory on the cabinets...

We could only fit half of them into our garage. We're getting a bit paranoid about leaving them sitting on our driveway at night. My nosy neighbor has already cruised by slowly taking his own inventory.

My husband found out that the poorly hung cabinet door can be corrected easily enough because the hinges are adjustable.

We had a very scary, very stressful mishap this morning. I was in the middle of running a software test when my husband yelled for help. I got up, but got hung up on the dogs, who always seem to be under my feet and in the way when I need to get somewhere in a hurry. He yelled again. By the time I got to the kitchen I found that one of the pipes for the sink broke and water was spilling everywhere. My husband told me to grab a bucket. I looked around and every bucket was full of wood and nails. I dumped one on the floor and stuck it under the pipe. It filled up within a matter of seconds, so I dumped the contents of a trash can on the floor and swapped that out with the bucket.

I kept running between the the planter outdoors and this broken pipe each time the bucket or trash can filled. My husband had to go outside and shut off the water main. We didn't have water for a few hours while he went to the hardware store to find a replacement part. Fortunately, he knew just what to get and had it fixed in a jiffy. I'll tell you, I was seriously thinking of helping myself to some Valium at that point. We've been without water for one reason or another way too often lately.

The good news is that we got our new refrigerator!

I know. It's not stainless steel, but I didn't want stainless steel. Our range will have some stainless steel on it, though. It will be a two-tone with black and silver, and we are expecting it to arrive tomorrow. The black will show fingerprints, but I can deal with that. Here's the inside...

Note all the horse syringes in the crisper.  Also, note that we are starving.  Please send food.