Color Pallet

I took a vacation day Friday and had me a four day weekend. And promptly spent the entire weekend in doors and enjoying the nice weather from inside. It was kind of nice setting up the tools outside in the driveway. Saved allot of running up and down those basement steps. I finally finished the nook walls and ceiling. Here are a couple of shots of the breakfast nook ceiling.

Mazie spent her entire weekend helping ME! instead of working on her house. She has been allot of help this weekend and a real trooper. I finished the ceiling late Friday night. We got a call late from Home Depot saying they didn't have the tile I bought the night previously. So we cleaned up and headed down to Bloomington to take a look at the Home Depot down there for tile (it is a bigger store that what we have here) and also stopped at Lowe's. I had decided the night before to skip the floating vinyl floor and go back to the ceramic tile.

Found a cool tile at Lowe's, they had enough for the kitchen and we loaded up and headed home.

Sunday, I spent most of the day caulking the joints on the nook ceiling and cut a few pieces that I left hanging the night before. Mazie told me to call it a day around 3 and some friends came over and we had a cook out, drank a few beers and promptly crashed in the bed at 9:30.

Today, Mazie did a ton of painting while I tackled the tiling of the kitchen floor. I almost got the floor finished but my body just gave out on me and had to call it quits. Again Mazie did all the painting and cheered me on through out the day.

Now I know you are asking where was Sugar all weekend? Well she was at Grand Ma's and spent most of the rest of the weekend hiding in the bedroom, keeping the bed warm, and staying out of the kitchen fray.

Still allot of work to do, and two weeks until the cabinets are delivered. The biggest thing is I won't have cabinets sitting in the living room when they do get delivered. But Sears keeps calling me to come and pick up my stove that has been sitting at the store for 3 weeks.

Friday

Took a vacation day today and started on the kitchen. What a mess.

I did get all the cabinets out and a few other things prepped and tore out also. The cabinets? horrible, I mean just nasty, dirty, and just.....nasty. I really don't have any more adjectives that come to mind other than the above. Behind and underneath was dirt, old tooth pics, dirt, broken plaster, and dirt. Did I mention dirt. Fine black dirt. The only thing that I can figure, is that when there was an old cook stove, and probably an old coal stove, is what all the fine black dirt I was seeing and breathing..soot! But anyway I got it all out. My sinuses are killing me.

I did sand and prime a good number of panels and started to layout the ceiling with getting 4 of the panels up on the ceiling before calling it quits for the night. The picture below is just some of the panels primed in the basement.

I finalized my cabinets and ordered them today, but it will be 2 weeks before they show. Overall things are coming together. A bit slowly for my internal timeline but physically I can only do so much.

Almost forgot, I did buy a stove the other night. I caught a sale at Sears and got a pretty good deal on a GE stainless model. Still absolutely blows me away the money they are getting for these things. Actually it kind of pisses me off, but I have dealt with it and moved on. I have bought 2 other homes in my past and never had to buy appliances, they always just came with the house. So I never really considered the cost until this time around.

Sorry to rail again about appliances.

GE SXS

So I have this insider friend at the local Home Depot. I get a call and she tells me that they have this GE SXS refrigerator that is a return. So the story I was told by my "insider" is a guy buys this $1300 refrigerator, takes it home and finds out that it doesn't fit in the space that he made in his kitchen. So he brings it back to the store for an exchange and there lands in my lap a brand new Stainless Steel refer that still has the protective plastic film all over it and never plugged in. I really didn't think to much about it for a couple of days and wandered in to the store Friday afternoon to take a look. The damn thing was marked down to $818. Couldn't belive it. This almost ranks up there with the dryer I found at Sears a month or so ago. Again I could have been knocked over with a feather. I haven't seen even a black or white unit in this price range let alone a SS model. So I snagged this deal up and set a date for delivery.

Here is the model number if anyone is interested: gsh25jsxss

I really have not done to much on the house the last week or this weekend with family in town and Easter. Hopefully I can get back on track this coming week and get more trim stripped and sanded.

Shocking, I am an alien and that the way I roll.

Again, I want to thank Beth and Rob. Especially Rob, he did the grunt work by helping me with picking up the washer and dryer today, then lifting the damn things downstairs into the basement. I am so out of shape my biceps are hurting today.

Below are a few pics of the laundry room taking shape

I made a box of 3/4" ply to set the dryer on. It really worked out well. Came out to be the right height for when you take the clothes out of the washer and into the dryer. Quite proud of myself actually.

The center pic is a temporary setup for the dryer vent. I have a trunk full of glass blocks that I bought and when the weather gets a bit warmer I will replace the old windows for the blocks. There is a dryer vent block that I bought also and will fit nicely. and make some of the unsightliness disappear.

When I bought the power cord for the dryer I purchased a 4 prong connector vice a 3 prong. I took it (the cord) out of the package, I thought "lets see if this thing plugs in to the outlet" and make certain that I have the correct cord.

Normally a sane person of my age would not only make sure that the circuit breaker is off but also double-check to make sure the circuit is off. I have to interject here that none of the breakers are labeled and I only guessing as to which was the correct breaker to be turned off. But not "checking" at all makes the last sentence moot.

So there I am standing looking at a large 30 amp circuit, a large plug in my right hand, and 3 bear copper terminals hanging at the other end of the cord. Lets plug this sucker in......hard going; Somewhere along the way my common sense checked out and went to Mexico for the moment, why the hell Mr. Common Sense left me at that very second I have pondered for most of the day; I think I might give it a little bit a harder push and BANG! WHOOSH! and blast of warm air hit my face, the strange smell of ozone enveloped my head. I kind of stood there and thought, what the fuck are you doing!? you crazy bastard. I could still be down there in the basement sizzling and smelling like beef jerky (the good stuff, not some generic brand) when the ozone cleared, all 3 copper ends of the cord were fused together and I was looking around for my buddy Mr. Common Sense and I am sure I had a look like a little kid that just took candy from the Brachs display at the grocery store and ate a whole handful without mom seeing.

Needless to say, I found the proper breaker for the dryer after that little expirence. Funny how a tripped breaker will click over to the right when it expirences a surge and let you know which is the proper one.

I was in such a hurry to get things hooked up that I didn't take that extra second to stop and think. I am such a dork, and the only reason I am still here to type this today is that there must be an alien inside my body that took control of my mind for that split second. What a freaking dummy I am.

Saftey is not an accident!

On Wednesday I had Sears come over and measure the kitchen and give me a quote for new cabinets. No frills, $14,000. I declined the nice mans sales pitch. Today I went and sat over at Menards for an hour and a half and went through the design process again. Just the cabinets, me installing and with the counter tops. $4600. Pretty much the same style and counters. Sears offers Wilsonart brand formica and wanted $2000, Menards offers Formica brand formica for $200. Makes you think a bit about the mark-up involved, and the labor. My next pricing will be the RTA cabinets.