Sunday

Fastened trim and caulked most of the kitchen ceiling today. Oh I did do loads of laundry in between and did some cleaning. This place is a pigsty from all the dust floating around and Sugar has been adding to the ghost turds by starting to shed the rest of her winter fur coat.

Here is a picture of the picture of the center light piece that I am fabricating for the kitchen ceiling.


The next picture is of the "cleat" that I fastened to the ceiling. I still need to get some lolly bolts or butterfly bolts into the 4 corners to help hold the entire contraption up, I predrilled holes into the 4 corners before running a couple of drywall screws to temporarily hold things up . I thought of prefabricating (we will just call it the box from now on) the box downstairs (in the basement)but after thinking about it for a few seconds the thought of then trying to lift and hold it all to the ceiling while simultaneously attempting to fasten everything upside down and over my head, a big NO WAY! crossed my mind (actually I had a few choice words that a Sailor uses in almost every sentence used in daily conversation).

The next image is of the pieces I have laid out and and have dry fit together, I still need to cut a few more chunks of wood and trim to get it all together first, and then hump it all upstairs for a final install.

I cut groves on the inside of the side pieces so I can slide 1/4" plywood into the center. once that is in place, I will fasten some trim to make it look purdy. The box is basically 60" x 16" and sectioned off like the picture above with 3 pendant lights hanging down. So a 1 foot square on each end and a 3 foot rectangle in the center. Make sense?

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.

Saturday

Ok, so I head over to Home Depot in my car to get some bead board or wainscoting to go on the walls for the porch. Not owning a truck, I thought that if they cut the 4x8's in half I could squeeze them into the back of the car. Know where I am going with this? So it is raining, cold, and the wind blowing hard enogh that the American Flag over the store was blowing straight out. And of course nothing fit. So I am standing there looking stupid trying to think who had a truck, and after a few phone calls I cajoled a co-worker into letting me use his truck.

So here is a shot of the first pieces I installed:

And here is a shot after priming:

Now being on a strict budget, I took a 8' length of 1x4 clear pine board that I had left over from the bedroom project, then ran the router and cut a bead down the edge. After making the router cuts, I put the wood on the circular saw and made a few more cuts.

I will admit that it took me a good 90 mins. to decide how to cut, and where to cut the wood before I got what I wanted. So don't get the impression that I really knew what I was doing. Most of the time I don't.

And this is the final product(sorry that I got my fat fingers in the picture). I am sure most folks would just by some chair rail and slap it up there, but being cheap and unconventional I did it my way.

I also had a contractor come over today and give me an estimate on replacing the wiring, shoot some insulation in the attic, and replace the basement windows. Roughly $6000, but I won't have a hard copy estimate until next week.