This is a long blog. Lots of pictures. And one of the only things that got Preston and I through this weekend was Merle Haggard, a little Whiskey, and a whole lot of laughter. Enjoy and feel free to comment.
Kitchen days 1 and 2
Preston and I decided it was time to finish the kitchen. So about a month ago we bought new appliances because we really needed them and Home Depot was having a sale. We had to finance them mostly because we're poor, but our oven wouldn't open sometimes which made cooking a real drag and burney (spell check is saying that isn't a word but I don't care). Also, our dishwasher made our dishes smell like fish....and we don't eat fish at home often.....So we picked them out and waited for them to be delivered. Unfortunately there was an ice storm and the delivery guys thought they would get away with the old excuse "your driveway is too icy we'll have to reschedule for after Christmas. NOT ON MY WATCH! And to make things worse my College Graduation had been scheduled that weekend as well and had been cancelled!!!!!!!! So I was in NO MOOD to play around with this baby talk of a little bit of ice. Grow a pair of balls and deliver the appliances already! So I made it happen. They delivered all the appliances on time (to the garage, and then Preston and his brothers and dad came to help move them inside). Then after moving in the fridge, Preston and I decided the paint job we had previously done (you might remember the red and cream kitchen) would just not do for our beautiful new appliances. So I picked out a beautiful turquoise/Tiffany Blue for the walls and repainted the cabinets (on one half) white. We then did a penny top counter top and exactly HALF the kitchen looked like upstanding citizens lived here the other half? Well, let's just say it looked like an old lady could have lived here-that is of-the welfare class in addition to social security. So then, on our New Years’ time off we decided to do the craziest thing so far on our old home.
We decided at around 1PM to tackle the crazy gnarly bit of the kitchen we ignored until this point. Preston said is the second scariest thing in the house. It was a Friday afternoon and we decided to take on painting the counter-top black, and then finishing out the under sink area and storage space that had previously been home to a colony of rats. We started out Saturday morning making the Rat Nest better, we made cuts and finished off the inside part of the under-sink area and the place where we might put our trashcan but we're not sure. During the 'excavation' bit I found some more rat bodies (mostly decomposed) that made Preston squeam from the other side of the room. Luckily Preston can handle any LIVE creature that crosses our path, and I can handle the dead things. We really complement each other at the others weak points.....any dead thing I'll take care of it no problem; the moment it comes alive? That's alllllllllllll Preston.
We continued finishing out and supporting the sink area using bits of wood that we had reclaimed from our wood piles. There was also a really weird long thick piece of Cedar wood that neither of us could think of where it came from. When we discovered it I said "Where did that cedar thing come from? I'm just going to go with it, not question it.......weird little cedar bundle......" we were truly amazed by how smooth everything was going....WE DIDN'T EVEN MAKE ONE SINGLE TRIP TO HOME DEPOT FOR THE WHOLE DAY!!!!! That really is a record for us. As we continued our good fortune also continued and we got everything looking really really really good.............................................UNTIL............The tile.
Well, Preston and I decided at 7:40PM it would be the best time to tile the back splash and so we did....It started off good, we mixed the mortar got the right consistency on the first try!! Go us! Then we got inside and began placing the tiles. We then realized that tiling a back splash is harder than we had anticipated and learned fast that we should invest in a wet tile cutter. But since we are poor we just had to make due with our little dinky tile cutter from the Floor and Decor. Once we were finished placing the tiles we stood back to admire our hard work and realized that some parts of it looked like crap. The spacing was off, there was going to be a lot of grout and it would look really stupid. We started laughing and I said, we’ll just put the tall things (like the blender) in front of the ugly bits so people won’t notice them!
After completing one whole side of the kitchen, we went for the other side “while we were at it” and things went a lot better. Until I got to this one part, the only wall outlet on that side…it was just weird enough of a space that a whole tile wouldn’t fit, but a half one was too small and looked crazy. So Preston being the cutting master he is started to cut a piece specially for this hole. After breaking about 20 pieces of tile he threw a man sized temper tantrum like an emotionally distraught child, throwing tile down on the ground and I was like “okay let’s take a break.” He wouldn’t give up, and finally got a piece cut and it worked. Once we got all that done he looked at it and got mad all over again because the piece he had cut for the outlet part looked crazy once it was on the wall...but by this time the mortar was set and there was nothing to do about it. So I just said, that’s where we’ll put the Keureg machine! No problems! So we went to bed and decided tomorrow is another day filled with renovating craziness.
Here is the side he "recommended doing a wider gap between tiles"
Then below that is the side I just did my own thing on.
Pretty sure that is mold, but we just spray painted over it thinking we'll be okay......
How we left it for the night so Willie wouldn't crawl under the house out of the gaping holes under the sink.
This is the new close up of the sink/faucet
Also,
I forgot to mention earlier. Willie Nelson the Kitty got out!!! It was the scariest moment of being a Kitty Mommy and after Preston and I looked all over the house for our little kitty bear we opened a wet food knowing he would come running.....NOTHING! We were both so scared and thought Willie might have gotten out through the open-ish door the extension cord was going out of. Preston walked outside and saw our little Willie Kitty just smelling the outside of the house. We got him back inside and decided to never ever to let that happen again!!!
Kitchen Day #3
We woke up feeling great about the job we had done, even with its quirks we love our kitchen, and it’s ours.
We then began grouting the back splash with “Charcoal” colored grout, which Nicole Curtis makes look soooo easy, but let me tell you. It’s a huge flipping mess. It gets everywhere, and it’s so dark you have to change your water every 3 minutes. Needless to say that part wasn’t too much fun. Once that was all completed we decided it was time to work on the garbage disposal. We had bought a brand new one because we really didn’t want to keep anything on the creepy kitchen the same, down to the plumbing for the kitchen sink.
So we thought we would start off changing out the outlet under the sink to one that is water sensitive and will shut off if it gets wet! GREAT! Well, Preston had done this to many of our other outlets so we weren’t worried. He replaced it and when he turned the power back on, nothing. There was no power getting to the outlet all of the sudden. Off the power to the whole house went again. He re-checked the wires and flipped the breaker again; still no power. Thinking we must have gotten a bad outlet mechanism we went back to home depot (second trip for the day) and there must have been some sort of ‘run’ on the GFCI (or whatever they are called) outlets and the only color they had was a weird tan color. So we got the weird tan one, because it’s under the sink, who really cares? Got home, for the 3rd time we shut off power to the house, replace the outlet; still, no power. So we go back up to the depot thinking surely it’s not us, obviously we got another faulty one. So we got a new tan one, and a regular outlet not the fancy gfci one that has a moister switch thinking maybe it’s just moist under the sink and that’s why it wouldn’t work. Got home, and for the 4th time we turn off the power to the whole house. When Preston un screwed the outlet one of the wires had come out of the screw place so he was like, duh! Replaced the wire to the correct place and turned on the power…..nothing…..no power. So 5th time we decide to turn off the power and just put in the regular outlet and if it doesn’t work, we obviously have no clue what we are doing and should call an electrician to come out because we must have royally messed something up. After turning on the power again with no luck from the plug, Preston and I literally just sat on the kitchen floor looking at each other wondering how we could have messed it up so bad. 4 Hours of our lives, 4 trips to home depot, and we were completely stumped. Then after a few minutes, Preston looked at me and said “Bailey. We are the dumbest people in the world…..” I looked at him and at the same time we realized the same thing! TO GET POWER TO THAT PLUG YOU HAVE TO FLIP THE SWITCH!!! DUHHHHHH!!!!! Then we were laughing so hard we were crying for a good 20 minutes about how much of a dumb mistake that was. After that we decided we needed a shot of Vodka and began working on the pipes to connect the sink, dishwasher and disposal. We wrestled with it for a long while, and finally rigged it perfectly! When we went to test for leaks there were two small leaks and we just had it. Enough renovation for the weekend and went for a hot and ready pizza from Little Cesar’s. More on the fixing of the plumbing soon when we get that mess all figured out.
Putting together the disposal was a cinch! We were psyched! Except it leaked, but now it’s completely fixed.
No comments:
Post a Comment