Well…damn, I’m sore this morning and it must be from all of the time going up and down the ladder and using the paint roller when I finished the kitchen a couple of days ago….and I didn’t sleep well at all last night and I really should have from the relief from finishing the kitchen….oh, well….didn’t get much done yesterday but finishing touches on the kitchen and getting things back to normal…it does look a little weird to have all of the kitchen stuff out of the dining room and I kind of miss the lights from the microwave and coffee maker glowing in the dark where I can see it from here….it’s supposed to warm up to about 40 today so I’ll probably get out to work on getting the pile of dirt and concrete off my front lawn this afternoon….and I do need to reset the computer on the grey bike since it is going to be almost 60 tomorrow and I want to get out on the trails even though the wind is going to be blowing 10 to 20 mph….but then the weather goes right back to the cold crap and stays that way for the rest of March and that sucks…it’s time for spring to show it’s face but it looks like April until that is going to happen….but that means I will get to at least 500 miles on the indoor bike before I get out on the trails….not much to do today…just going to ride the bike here in a minute and then I really should clean this place up at some point…want to get the dining room cleaned before I start on the trim in there and start cleaning the paneling for painting…but, I am going to take a week off and heal up some first…I can’t remember hurting this much from just normal work around the house and it must be from getting old…so I just need to figure out how to deal with that and still get things done….more later….
Category Archives: My Life
The kitchen is done!
Well…finally…my kitchen is done…just got the range hood and installed it and that was the last piece of the puzzle….man, two months of work to take it from the gross, dirty thing it was to a clean, usable kitchen that I am not ashamed of anymore…and I know I shouldn’t be ashamed since I didn’t let it get to the state it was in when I bought this place but taking a year to get to working on it and finishing it is on me….it does feel good to have a room I can be proud of and now I know my color scheme of using the grey for the walls and white for the trim was the right one…it just looks so clean and i hope that the next darker shade of grey will look good in the dining room…not sure what color I’m going to use in the bathroom yet but I wonder if white walls with grey trim would look cool? It would sure brighten it up in there replacing the dark blue that is in there now but we’ll see…now I am taking a week off to just live for a bit and heal my aches and pains…now have I earned a cocktail? Yeah, probably not but it would be nice to do a Star Trek night with the latest season of “Picard” starting today and there is an episode of “Discovery” to watch too…I need some rest….
I have a functioning kitchen again…
Well…I was going to take the day off to heal up some but, you know me, if there is work to be done, I need to do it so I got to work today cleaning up the shelf that I keep the appliances on and moved it back into the kitchen where it belongs…and that meant cleaning all of the appliances, too and that took a couple of hours…but the result is a fully functioning kitchen again with everything where it’s supposed to be…now, if they would just deliver my damn range hood, I could complete everything and then justify taking a few days off to heal without having to fight my finely honed sense of guilt…I am already planning to redo the masking and trim painting after I give it a few weeks to cure but that is something that has no urgency to me right now….I am going to get out and shovel the dirt off my lawn tomorrow and put it right in the street where it belongs and let the city deal with it as they should have when they dug up my street….and there is a much bigger pile than I thought with it being covered in snow all winter so it may take a couple of hours to get all of it off and get the lawn raked so it doesn’t die….but I do need to be aware of how badly my hands hurt so I don’t aggravate them…oh, well…I’ll stop bitching now….
March 3rd
Well…that was a pretty normal night with getting up a little after 6 but it’s taken me almost a half hour to get to the coffee and that means it will take a while for it to work…had some strange dreams last night that had a weird perspective…I was an observer instead of being part of it…more like watching a movie than anything else and I wonder why that would be? I was really sore after the painting yesterday and that continues today but I’m sure that will get better after I rest everything today…I did remember something about latex paint that had escaped me when I was trying to figure out why the painter’s tape pulled the paint off the trim…it takes the paint 2-4 weeks to cure before you should essentially do anything to it like cleaning, etc…..and I only had two days before I taped it so it’s not the paint, it’s my impatience that made the paint peel…but there is no way I was waiting that long to get to the rest of the painting in the kitchen….but, I will wait to replace the power feed for the range hood since it needs to be hot glued into the corner and it will just peel the paint off….damn, it looks like we get two days of warm weather and then back into the 30’s for highs for the rest of the month and that sucks…but I am going to try to get outside on the bike Sat and Sun if the wind cooperates but it looks like 15-20mph and that is too much…so I’ll be on the indoor bike for the rest of the month…I did get to 400 miles the other day but won’t make it to the 600 I planned and that is okay…still a good start to the year….not much to do today…only need to clean up the shelf that holds the kitchen appliances and get it back in the kitchen…and install the range hood if it comes today…oh, no cocktails last night…it seems to be easier to not have them than it is to have them…and I think that is a good thing…more later….
Have I earned a cocktail or two?
Well…damn, I am sore after working on the kitchen and getting so close to finishing it…I even went back to repaint the trim pieces that the tape had pulled the paint from and then put all of the new outlet plates on and they look pretty cool in shiny black…and I made sure all of the switches and outlets were straight since they were so crooked before they looked like hell…and all that work leads me to the question of the day: have I earned a cocktail or two? It’s been almost two months of being good and I really like that but I feel like I can use a reward for the two months of work that I did on the kitchen…going from the gross, dirty mess that it was to the clean, semi-modern look that it has now…I know there are lots of detractors who deride any use of greys since they are pretty overdone and now out of style according to them but I like the way it looks and that is the only thing that counts…and the new black range hood is supposed to be here tomorrow….yeah, right…and that will finish what I’m going to do to the kitchen…for now…so, do I or don’t I? Hmmmm….I guess we’ll see later…maybe just one with Star Trek? I do know that I have gone out to the kitchen to just look at it a couple of times….and even with the crazy crooked cut lines, I can live with it….
Got the kitchen painted…
Well…damn, this was a long time coming..I finally have the walls painted in the kitchen…2 coats and they look pretty good..I like the color and how it looks but there is not a straight line in any corner and that kind of looks like hell but there is nothing I can do about that without chopping out every corner and replastering it and that just isn’t going to happen….and the painter’s tape pulled off a lot of the white on the trim so I’ll need to touch that stuff up but that is going to wait a while until the pain is out of my hands and it really isn’t a big job so I can do that as time goes on…the rest of the house isn’t going to have that problem with much less masking that has to be done…so, I’m done for the day…5 hours is enough for one day….and I haven’t had lunch yet so I guess I’ll go with one meal today since I want to read the news first and that will take an hour or so…the kitchen does look completely different and I have to stop being my own harshest critic…I think I did the best that could be done without tearing out walls and starting from scratch….and over time I’ll stop noticing the flaws and just enjoy my kitchen again…might take a while….more later….
March 2nd
Well…that was okay…slept okay but most of the night it was on my right shoulder and it hurts a bit and is pretty stiff and that won’t help with the painting today…but I can play through that to get the kitchen finished by the end of the week…and that is even with repainting the trim that I’ll be pulling the paint off when I remove the painters tape…and the range hood is going to be here today so I can put that up either tomorrow or Friday and I think it the holes for the screws holding the old one up will fit the new one since it is the same size from the same company…and I finally got the old vent blocked off since this one is unvented and doesn’t need it….and that stops the cold air from flooding into the kitchen like it was…and I really don’t cook enough on the stovetop to need a vented one….and in the year I’ve been here, I only used the old one once or twice and that was just to use the light….I am going to have to get out to shovel the concrete and dirt the city left on the front of my lawn when they dug up the street for water to the new houses across the street…don’t want it to kill my lawn that I worked so hard on last summer….and that is going to be a pain in the butt but it will be warm enough to do that this weekend…it is going to be over 50 sat but then right back to highs in the 30’s for the rest of the week…where the hell is March and the warmer weather? Not much to do today…need to do the grocery run this morning after the bike ride and then the rest of the day will be painting and cleaning up…I really can’t wait to see what it looks like after all of the work to get to this point…and I am looking forward to taking another week off to let my body heal up again after it’s done…more later….
It’s official…
Well…it’s finally official…I am damn tired of working on this house….spent the whole afternoon masking off the trim in the kitchen to get ready to paint the grey tomorrow and some of the white paint is already being pulled off the trim just re-positioning the tape as I was putting it on….and I had cleaned everything with tsp and scrubbed everywhere there was grease from cooking but I guess that wasn’t enough…so there will be lots of touch up on the trim Thursday and Friday…I never really expected to have a new looking house interior when I started on it…if I wanted that, I would have stripped the trim and re-finished the oak but that was way more work than I was ever going to do….I am just tired of working, working, working….and I think I’ve gotten to the point that I just need a rest and however the kitchen turns out it’s good enough for me….okay, that’s enough whining…there is not one straight line in all of the seams that I taped off today….have to keep reminding myself that this is an old house and the next people will make it look new….I need some time off….
Got back on schedule…
Well…after getting a late start this morning, I did get on the bike and got started by 7:15 and finished before 8 and I got me out the door by 8:20 or so and that put me back on schedule for the day…I did get the car washed and then over to depot to get some small things I needed…and outlet to replace the one they plastered over, a small glue gun to fasten the shield for the power feed to the range hood back to the wall after I paint, and a small roller to get into spaces that my big one won’t fit..along with a couple of cover plates for the outlets…got back here a little after 9 and have already installed the new outlet and have lunch cooking and have paid all the bills that are due in the next week or so…and now I’m finishing up the coffee and relaxing a bit…I was going to buy my new range hood at depot this morning but they only had white ones so I had to order it on line from them and it is supposed to be here Thursday but I’ll believe that when I see it…planning on not getting it until next week and that will be okay…I’ll have everything else done by then and it should only take about 5 minutes to install…so, a productive morning even with not doing much…I will be back for a political one later but I need to read some news first…more later….
March 1st
Well…damn, running really late today with not getting out of bed until 6:44 and that will make me late for the whole day and I only have 9 minutes to get on the bike and get it started….had an okay day yesterday and got a lot done but today is going to be a little easier….not going to work on the kitchen today since I need to get out and wash the car and hit depot for materials and I need to let the paint harden up some before I mask off the white so I can paint the grey…and I am going to get a small roller since I have a lot of places that the big one won’t fit and I don’t want to use a brush on a large part of the walls…and I have to get an electrical socket and cover plates to finish up the detail work….I may even get the range hood so I can finish up the kitchen by the end of the week…not sure yet…not much to do today…just need to get going and get on the bike so I can get out and get the errands done and I won’t get that started just sitting here…more later….