Presto chango

Now you see the old door...

...now you don't. Holy new door, Batman!Here are a few things I love about the new door:

1. It's black. This just gets me all excited for getting my house painted this summer (note to self: need to book that work...)

2. The only space you can see outside is through the window.

3. You can't feel outside with this door.

4. I didn't have to paint it. Granted it was REEEEEEEEEE-diculously expensive for me to have the installers paint it, but with all of the other work smacking me in the face right now, the fact that I didn't have to bother with doing one more project (for those of you friends--and that was basically everyone I knew--that advised me to save the money and paint the door myself, surprise. I didn't take your advice and I couldn't be happier).

When the installer left today it was everything I had to not hug him around the neck, whisper sweet nothings in his ear, and give him a slobbery kiss of appreciation. However I restrained myself... for the time being. Truth be told, I'm finding it really hard right now to resit the urge to strip down to my skivvies and throw myself at the door. Ooh. That was awkward.

And this is where I now do my dishes and accessorize

I'm going post crazy tonight (this one is number three, here's one and two). As much as I don't love the fact that I'm washing dishes in my bathroom sink for the next (fingers crossed) few weeks, I do love love love Mrs. Myer's Clean Day products. Might I suggest Lavender or my new favorite (shown above) Lemon Verbena?

If these walls could talk...

... would they be moaning or sighing with relief?

Moaning. This is them down to the studs. "I'm naked, naked."

Siging with relief. Even though they are now down to the studs and feeling naked, this pile is all of the stuff that covered them over the past 104 years (admittedly, I was not sighing for relief when 104 years of gypsum dust, insulation and who knows what was covering every square milimeter of my house).

Moaning. Agh! Look! A hole in my house. A hole in my house that was N-E-V-E-R in the plan. Man of Iron never got the memo that Domestikat finds it extremely difficult to stray from the plan. But wait for it, wait for it...

Sigh of relief. Look. That's the new window. Straying from the plan was actually better than the original plan.

And just for fun, these are the boards I saved because, yes, I will be making kitchen cornhole! out of them. Heck yes, the smurf cupboards will live out their destiny as America's favorite backyard game of skill and strategy and mostly drunken beanbag tossing.

Demolition Derby: The quick and dirty

I'll post pictures tomorrow, but I survived demolition. I am forever indebted to the Man of Iron who really was the brawn behind all of the work--but I do a mighty fine job of trimming shims, thank you very much.

In all honesty, he did most of the work and I did a lot of freaking out. Here are some of the demolition stats:
3=number of trips I made to Lowe's today
2=number of times I teared up because I was so overwhelmed
4=number of sheets of plastic I finally hung up to keep the dust from traveling all over my house--oops, too late
700=number of times I went back and forth on a decision to take out the old window and install a new one
48*36=dimensions of the new window I impulse purchased and watched Mike install

So installing a new window, not in the plan. Also not in the plan was re-drywalling an entire wall and it looks like that may have to be done. The window will definitely make my back splash tiling MUCH easier since it's now level. The original window (installed 104 years ago) was almost an inch out of level. As charming as the old window was, it will be nice to have this new one when all is said and done (which seems like so far away...).

I promise pictures in the next post, but for now I'm hopping off of this roller coaster and heading to bed.

Have I told you lately that I heart IKEA?

After a week away, I returned home anxious for the weekend. There were a lot of things I needed to try and get accomplished on the kitchen, but my mom was also in town for the weekend. Turns out I was able to have a great time with mom, and still accomplish a TON of stuff. Also, it was a huge relief to have my mom here, so she could see all that I'd done with my house since the last visit (over a year and a half ago) and so that she could see what I was going to do with the place. Oh, and mostly it was great to have her here to get some good old mom hugs and love.

I have basically made all of the big ticket purchases I need for the kitchen (except for the granite counter and the services I'm waiting on). Saturday I bought my dishwasher, and today I bought the light I've been coveting for months.

But the best, the best thing of all, is that I bought all--well, almost all--of my kitchen cabinets. And they were sales tax free! Every Memorial Day weekend IKEA pays the sales tax on everything you buy, and last summer I made a mental note of that. As I started planning for the kitchen, I thought about holding out that long, but really didn't want to spend my entire summer working on the kitchen. However, when I returned home from a week away, what did I find in my pile o' mail but a flyer from IKEA stating that they would cover the sales tax on any $1600 or more kitchen that was purchased between today and next week.

The possibility to save myself a couple hundred dollars was enough to get me off my duff and down to the mega-store (two times in one weekend, no less). I got the bulk of what I needed--and a little more for less than I had expected to pay. Yippee!

And in case you were wondering, you can almost fit an entire kitchen in one little Jetta. And if your Jetta had a roof rack, you could have tied the really tall pieces onto it and fit it all in there. But instead, you may have to recruit some help. Beer and pizza work as good payment (as if the joy of going to IKEA on a Sunday afternoon isn't payment enough).

Now it's just a matter of piecing the 4 dozen plus boxes of PERFEKT and STAT items I have sitting in my basement together. This oughta be fun...

Floored, again

After much back and forth, and a couple of more bids on the floors, it turns out I can refinish them (or Kevin the miracle worker can). This makes me happy, although it does make me sad that there may be no cornhole!

Maybe I'll make a cornhole! set out of my smurf-blue cupboards... hmm...

Floored

Turns out I can't just refinish the floors. No amount of sanding and staining will truly restore the 104 year old fir that's in the kitchen.

This bums me out.

What's crazy is that it almost costs as much to sand and refinish the floor as it would to install new floors. So I'm getting bids this weekend.

This got me thinking about how I'd love to have some sort of tribute/relic to the history of the house in my new kitchen. So what if I did something with some of the old floor boards before they toss them. That may be cool (or it may just be another project to tack on the list...).

Taking creative suggestions on any creative things I could do with some old fir. If nothing else, I'm thinking cornhole!