More Kitchen pics

Here are a couple more pics of my kitchen layout. As I get more of the plans scanned in I will add them to the blog. I am getting pretty jazzed about this project underway, Beth did a great job putting this all together.

Now here is another picture you can put your own words to. I like:

Man I am feeling gassy after eating that cabbage.

Feel free to copy and paste the image on your site and add your own caption!

Snow and a Kitchen

This is the view that greeted me Sunday morning after a snow storm blew through late Saturday night. Very pretty with all the trees covered. And the cool thing was the 6 inches we received was mostly gone by late afternoon. About 1 pm in the afternoon I cold hear loud "plops" outside. For the life of me I couldn't figure out what was going on. When I glanced out the window I didn't see anything, then a HUGH pile of snow fell out of the sky and "plop" on to the ground. Gigantic piles of snow were melting and falling off the Norwegian Pine I have out in the front yard and onto the ground. I swear if a small pet of child was standing out there, and got nailed by one of these "piles" they would have been flattened!

Here is a CAD of what the kitchen is going to look like. I will upload more as I get the docs scanned in.

Oh my gawd!

This one has to fall under one of the most bizarre and wildest purchases I have ever had. I walked into Sears and asked to see the cheapest washer and dryer set they sell. I knew from looking online that they had a Kenmore for around $350 or so each for a washer and dryer. So the polite sales girl shows me the dryer, and I happen to look over at the next aisle and see this Kenmore Elite steam dryer sitting there (an H5 I might add, whatever that means). As she is talking up the cheaper dryer I felt drawn over to the Elite series dryer, nay beckoned by the dryer. Now here is a dryer that lists for $1599.00 yes that is fifteen hundred dollars!

I about fell over when I saw it. Then I looked closer at the tag. I wear glasses and my prescription is fairly current so I really don't have to many issues seeing but I just couldn't believe what I saw on the tag. $319!!!! Exactly! I about fell over!

Now the nice sales girl realized that I wasn't standing next to her anymore and she wandered over to where I was bracing myself against the partition, I asked her if the tag was listing the correct price, $319? for a $1599 (list) dryer.

Yes sir, she said. Oh wow! when I was working Sunday, they had a tag that listed the dryer for $600, they must have just changed the tag. Sir I didn't show you this dryer because you said you didn't want to spend more than $350 and I thought it was still $600.

Hey that's ok, I said. But seriously, is that price correct?, Yes she said, no really what is the catch? is that price correct? It was a floor model she chimed in and I guess they have new models coming out so they want to get rid of it.

I think I asked her 4 times if the tag was correct. Needless to say I thought about it for another 30 seconds and whipped out the debit card to pay for the dryer. As I was doing that, I was looking over my shoulder to see if security was coming to take me away for stealing.

I am still in shock, no scratches (if it did who cares?) no dings, nothing but the full 1 year warranty and all the parts and pieces that one needs to hook it up. Is that wild or what?! I was so jazzed I had to call my brother, then my sister to let them know what just happened.

When I called my brother I asked him about the $7500 credit that I heard about last week. He did some research and found out that I qualified for the credit and filled an addendum to my return. I should be receiving a check (yes a check from the government) in a month or so. Interest free, and $500 a year for a payback of 15 years. As long as my normal income tax return is over $500 a year, I won't have to pay any extra money out of pocket. The IRS will just take the money from my normal yearly return refund.

I'm getting a new bathroom! I'm getting a new bathroom! and a kitchen!! Today was a wild day! Crazy!

Seriously, I think I can get both rooms done for around that price and do all the work myself.

Someone pinch me!

Plan, plan, plan

Plan3D, I have been using this program for about a month now and so far have been happy with it. One thing about the program is use subscribe to the program vice buying the software outright. Really for $36 a year, Ifind it fits my budget. You can layout anything that has to do with a house, kitchens, baths, any room. And I think you cn not only layout an entire house, and the yard to. Don't hold me to the yard thing, I haven't dove into the program to deep.


A few years back I worked in a cabinet shop for a few months (until I got laid off on Christmas Eve, but that is a whole nether story) I used to do layouts for the kitchens themselves and the layout for the cabinet boxes to be cut on a 3 axis router. I HATE CAD programs. But I have found Plan3D pretty straight forward and easy to use. http://www.plan3d.com/ for the life of me I cannot remember what the program was called that we did the actual kitchen layouts with. But Multicam was my nemeses for the router cutting.

Here is a view of my kitchen and one layout I am toying with.

More is the word for Monday

More snow, only 3 inches at my place but it dumped in about 3 1/2 hours. There was a few times I played gopher at work (popped my head up from the cubical) and looked outside only to see white out conditions. Below is the final coat of the door jamb I took out between the kitchen and living room. the "white" stuff on the boards is the wet poly that I put on just before I took the picture.

After work tomorrow I will put the door jamb and trim back on the walls and start on the next one. Yeah!?

The bank had an appraiser come over today. Being a smallish city, the appraiser told me this was the third or fourth time he had been in this house over the years (and most of the houses on the street for that matter) so my walk through was all of 15 mins. He already had a floor plan and the past appraisals in his folder. The short time I talked to him he told me what the past appraisal numbers came out as, and also the story of "Rhonda" and how she trashed the place. I guess it took him months to get into the place and only after the bank foreclosed. I am going to venture a guess that the value of this house has plateaued and it will be after I am long gone that it will move up in any value, significantly.

For the hundreds of my rabid readers and followers of my blog, I am not certain if I told the story of "Rhonda" and how this old house turned into the corner drug store for a number of years. So the stories go, it was so bad that the rest of the street was getting afraid to come outside for fear of a drive by. I would be willing to bet there is a bit of midwestern exaggeration in all the stories told. The neighbors have also told me, this place had quite allot of foot traffic at all hours of the day and night. I would also bet there was allot of bubbling water from bongs over the cricket chirps that could be heard on a clear summer night if one listened close enough.

But Rhonda and her "family" are gone and there will be stories of me to be told in the future, without a doubt.

An irony, (speaking of appraisals) I am watching House Hunters on HGTV and they have people looking at 1.5 million dollar homes. I would place a bet that this house is going to come in at way under the numbers that are being showed on TV.

Snowed Under

Had quite a bit of snow today, I think about 6" or so.

So I was looking at the door jam between the front room and the kitchen and I got this great idea to try and strip and sand the door jamb in place. Not my first idea that didn't work out.

I ended up taking the door jamb out and hauling it into the basement for a "strip" search. 6 coats of paint plus one of varnish. When I pulled the door jamb off the kitchen side of the door I found the wood is pine vice the birch that is in the rest of the house. I also found that the original color of the kitchen and door jamb is a dark flat green, which from what I have read about A&C homes, brown and greens were used to give a sense of more "earthyness".

The first pic is of the door jamb, out of all the colors of paint on the wood I like the peach color the best. The picture is kind of crappy and doesn't really show all the paint layers. The second is where a carpenter must have gotten pissed and took an axe to the framing and hacked out a good section of the 2x4 in order to get the door frame square. You can really see the chop marks in the wood.

Not really a surprise, but I found the two layers of linoleum on the kitchen floor. I had to peal back some to get the door frame out.

Tuesday

I found this picture on a blog site that I losely follow. http://www.projectkraemerlane.net/ Is this a killer kitchen or what? Now this room is something to aspire for.

And this is a bathroom in the same house. I really like the subway tile and the wall color.