Well…damn, another 4 hours of work but I have the trim and the ceiling done in the kitchen with two coats of paint and have the clean up done, too….wasn’t a lot of work but just time consuming and that sets me up to paint the grey on Thursday and then get the range hood Friday and finish it up….and then it’s off for the weekend to take it easy and just enjoy the results for a while…I do have some stains that are bleeding through the paint and I can’t figure that out since I took it down to raw wood and cleaned it with everything I could think of…oh, well…I’ll think about it and maybe use some white enamel for a primer and then go over it with the eggshell…and I still have enough white paint to do at least one more window before I have to get another gallon so that can wait til next week for both the white and grey…I am going to get some better rollers to do the walls…the cheapos from the dollar store are okay for the ceiling where you can’t see the uneven paint but that would show up on the walls…so now it’s break time for a little while to have lunch before I get back on cleaning the glass shade for the kitchen light and putting that back up…then I’m done for the day….more later…

Well…got some work done this morning with washing the entire kitchen to get ready to start painting Monday…after I was done, I had a half inch of mud in the bottom of the bucket and it was all from dust on the surfaces….they didn’t look that dusty but after all of the sanding in there on the cabinets and the trim and door frames, I guess the two tubs of filler I used ended up in the bucket….I even got some painting done on the door frame for the door to the basement to get the raw wood covered so it will look good when I get the rest of the frame painted Monday…didn’t do all of the new trim for the door since it takes about two hours of masking to keep the door seals and hinges clean and I just didn’t feel like working that hard today….so that will be a project for when it gets warmer and I have the rest of the kitchen done….and now I have the rest of the day off to watch soccer and races and I am going to enjoy that while I can….I do need to clean a bit around here, too, but I’m not in too much of  a hurry to start that….more later…

Well….it feels pretty darn good to have all of the sanding done in the kitchen and finally getting ready to paint after two months of hard work…and that makes for a nice afternoon as I just take it easy after working all morning…and the only thing that I have left to do before I get started is washing the walls and ceiling tomorrow to get all of the dust off of them…it has been a long, long journey to get to this point and I’m pretty sure that I’ve done some permanent damage to my body doing it…my right thumb never stops hurting anymore and my back is the same but I don’t know if that will get better if I rest it some after I paint next week….going to really try to finish it up next week and then take some time off again to let things heal up before I get to work on the dining room…don’t have a lot of prep to do in there other than the baseboards and the two windows but I think they will each only take about a day for that and then I can get to painting after I get some TSP to clean the walls…but, right now I am going to just sit for a bit and start to plan for the lasagna I’m making later…I need something to eat that will give me the cals I need to keep working…ow…now my right side hurts, too….darn…

Well….I really did have plans to get all of the rest of the trim for the kitchen sanded and filled today but the door frame for the door to the basement had another idea…after taking my good putty knife to chop off the extra plaster that was left on it and painted over, I started to scrape the rough edges that looked pretty beat up and I thought it was in the wood but it was only in the layers and layers of paint that was on the trim and that had been chipped and painted over with no prep for 40 years…so, after an hour and a half of scraping and chipping that paint off, I finally got to the sanding for all of it to get ready to try to smooth it enough to fill the bad spots…oh, after I used a screwdriver and a hammer to set most of the nails that were working loose…the I finally got to filling all of the flaws trying to not use as much filler as I had been using to keep the dust down when I start to sand it in a few days…but I am going to wait until all of the trim is filled and ready for sanding so I’ll only have one cleanup to do after I’m done…still…3 hours for one dang door frame? Way too much work and I’m glad that the rest of the house is going to be much less work…I hope….

Well…you know I’ve been bitching a bit about how half assed lots of things were done on this house, and I just discovered another one that has me just shaking my head…as I was going downstairs to get another roll of paper towel, I noticed that the gasket seal to the door to the basement was distorted and I was a little curious why that would be….after looking at it, I saw that there were nails driven through the seals into the door frame and if it was to keep the seal in the groove, I just don’t know why they didn’t just take a little bit of adhesive and apply it to the tang that goes into the groove that is supposed to hold it in place….after I removed the nails and tried to get the seal to go back to it’s normal shape, it was stuck to the door frame and was not loose at all so again, I’m confused with the half assed way and reason why this was done at all….I really don’t think they knew that adhesive exists since they nailed the drawer head on the smallest drawer in the kitchen cabinets, too, and I had to remove those nails and glue the head on as it should have been…I wonder what else I’m going to find as I continue to work on this place? I wonder if that’s why my neck hurts…from shaking my head so much?

Well…had the discipline to get back to working on the kitchen today and got a 12 foot section of the baseboards sanded and repaired along with a big chunk of plaster that had fallen out when I was sanding off the extra paint that was on them….and I saw that the green was not the original color of the kitchen but a nice yellow that they shouldn’t have painted over with the dark green that they used….I did learn something with all of the other filling that I had to do for the cupboards…and that is to use the very smallest amount that I can and I even went over the parts that I filled with a wet paper towel to take off the excess and make it easier to sand by hand so I don’t have to spread dust all over with the sander…I am going to use the shop vac to plug into the sander to help control the dust like I did this morning with the original sanding…working down on the floor really hurt my legs to the point I could barely move when I finished with the filling and the sanding beat the heck out of my right hand so quitting after only 12 feet was the right idea…I can still finish the trim by the end of the week and be ready to paint them so maybe on to the ceiling and walls next week? That will finish up what I want to do in the kitchen and get me started on the dining room trim and windows…..and those are in much better shape than the kitchen so it should go faster…I hope, anyway….

Well…after working on the small bits of filling I needed to do to start prepping the walls for painting in the kitchen…as I looked close at the transition between the baseboards and the wall I noticed there is no straight demarcation between the two since it has too damn much paint on it…so that just doubled the work I’m going to have to do to make it look okay…and the corners are full of paint that is going to have to be chiseled out like I did for one this afternoon and it revealed at least 5 coats of paint and took me about 20 minutes to get it to the point where I can fill and paint…so any hope that it would be easy is gone and that is depressing….and every inch of the baseboard is going to have to be chipped out, too, and I can see that taking at least three days before I can even start to sand, fill, and paint them…so I’m looking at another week or so of prep before I can paint…darn…at least I got the downstairs cleaned up to the point that I can live with it and won’t have to do any more work downstairs until I get the kitchen done…but, I am going to take my full week off since the small amount of prep that I did on the baseboards hurt my thumb like crazy and I am not looking forward to being in pain for weeks again…oh, well…

Well…after cleaning up and putting everything away today, it is really nice to walk around here with not stepping on an extension cord or anything else from the kitchen work…and this place seems so much bigger without all of the totes, pots and pans, and food everywhere….and the downstairs is cleaner than it has been in the almost year since I moved in here and that is pretty cool…but I really do want to take some time off after the 6 weeks of daily work I had to do to get the kitchen done….and that is going to happen starting Saturday morning since I think I can get everything else done tomorrow including clearing out the spare bedroom so I can start working on that sometime soon…but not for at least a week…or more since I do want to complete the kitchen before I start on any new projects….with the kitchen almost done, the rest of the work I need to do doesn’t seem so daunting and I am hoping to get the dining room and living room painted before summer…maybe I’ll start that before the bedroom?  The dining room should be pretty easy with only the windows and the baseboards to do before I paint the walls…and they only need to be cleaned before I can paint them so it should be easy…now it’s time to take the rest of the day off…still on the no cocktail thing and today makes 38 days of being good but I still don’t know how long it’s going to last…we’ll see….

Well…I really didn’t know that I would have just as much work to do cleaning up as I did repairing the cabinets in the kitchen…and I didn’t think it would hurt my hands as much as that work did either….I did have to run an errand this morning to get some pepperoni that they didn’t have yesterday so I can make a pizza this weekend but then the cleanup started in earnest…had to wash all of the dishes that I wanted to put in the cupboards and I am on the 4th load of those but I think I’m done with that for the day…and I vacuumed the basement floor again this morning to get the dust I missed yesterday and then mopped it so I can start using the space again without tracking dust all over the place…then, on to the dining room where I had to organize my work materials and get rid of the trash in there that had built up from using it for a work area for weeks….and then vacuumed that floor and washed it and the dining set since it was covered in a thick film of dust…and, even though my hands felt okay when I got up, they hurt as bad as they did when I was working on the cabinets and the stiffness has returned making typing this painful on every stroke…so, the living room is going to wait til tomorrow even though the dust coating is bugging the hell out of me…I was supposed to be able to take a week off but I sure couldn’t do that with the house so dusty and messy so maybe I can start that after I finish up the dust removal tomorrow…sure hope so, I am worn out….

Well….damn, that took a long time and lots and lots of work but it is finally done…not the whole kitchen, that will take another couple of weeks…after I take some time off to let my hands heal so they don’t keep me up all night again…but the kitchen cabinets are complete after putting the pulls on the drawers and putting them in…and putting the new blinds up on the window over the sink…oh, and cleaning the windows and the other two sets of blinds that were coated in dust…and that is a pain in the butt having to do each slat individually but it’s done and they are re-hung and look pretty damn good…so, am I going to take the rest of the day off? Ha, ha…no…I almost did but I really do want to get started on the dust room downstairs…won’t get it all done today but I’ll get a start at it and then cleaning is all I have to do for a week or so as I take it easy for my poor body…when I was cutting down a screw to make it fit in the   top drawer’s thin head using my grinder with a cutoff wheel, I cut off a bunch of skin on my left hand this time so there is even more to heal….but, right now all I want to do is finish my coffee and make  a marinated chicken leg quarter with some asparagus that was on sale for 1.49 a pound at Meijers today…I need a break….more later….