Rebuild

I'm always impressed by how well Andrew and I work together on home projects. Today was especially impressive. In just a few hours we completely cleared out the bathroom. We ripped up the floors, ripped the tileboard off the walls, and took out the sink, toilet, medicine cabinet, and tub/shower. It's now a completely empty room. And now we are to the scary part. We have to put it all back together. We are still trying to figure out the layout of the new room. If anyone would like to come over and see what we have to work with I am open to any suggestions. I think anything would be better than it was. Here's some before and after demo pictures.

Demolition Day

We're finally starting on our upstairs bathroom.  Today is demolition.  It's always scary tearing things out.  You never know what your going to find.
Pictures to follow.

"Let's do something crazy"

At dinner a few hours ago, Andrew said, "do you wanna do something crazy today?"
I said absolutely.  "What do  you have in mind?" He said, "What do you think about ripping up the carpet in the living room?" Woo hoo.
Andrew and I have a tendency to start a project before we've have time to plan it out. So we have no idea what's under the carpet or what we will  be doing to the floors next. But the living is cleared and we're getting started.  I can't wait to see it!

Earth Month

I've always enjoyed gardening, but I've never successfully grown anything-except my tulips do somehow come up every spring. Last year, Andrew and I decided we would start a vegetable garden in containers on our back deck. The only thing I actually got to harvest was lettuce.  But it was pretty good lettuce.
So this year, we are trying again.  I've bought 3 more gardening books because last year's selections, The Complete Guide to Vegetable Gardens and The Idiot's Guide to Vegetable Gardens, weren't helpful enough.
Two big changes we're making this year: 1) we will be planting in the ground instead of containers and 2) we planted seeds in starter packs and will be transplanting them outside later in the season.
We also are going to be making our own compost.  I'm considering this my Earth Month (March 22-April 22) project, along with finally getting recycling bins from City Hall. (I've just been saving all our recyclables in boxes and grocery bags since the beginning of the year)
The compost part scares me a little.  One of the books I bought is all about composting. It's called Compost. There's a whole chapter about the bugs you want to be in your compost. eeek...I do not like that part.  But what's even worse than that, you don't neccessarily want these bugs in your garden so you have to pick them out before you add the compost to your garden.  I told Andrew I will need heavy duty gloves and special garden tongs.  He doesn't understand why I need tongs.  He thinks if I have gloves on I should be able to just pick it up with my hands. This is going to be quite a challenge.
Here's a list of what we will be growing-we've added a few things from last year's selection.

 Tomato

  Pepper

  Lettuce

  Carrot

  Cucumber

  Squash

  Zuchinni

  Green Beans

  Onion

  Garlic

  Basil

  Cilantro



 

  



planting-March 21



greenhouses

growth-March 28

 







Countertop Transformation

This has been a very successful week in our kitchen. After taking 2 weeks off, we fell very behind and did not complete the project by my birthday. I think we can be finished by the end of this weekend though..I'm hopeful.
This week we got the backsplash tiled, finished mudding/sanding/painting the walls and I just finished the countertops.

We purchased a product called Countertop Transformation that transforms your laminate countertop in '3 easy steps': base coat, decorative chips, protective top coat.

 To anyone considering using this product my advice to you is BE PATIENT! Expect to have to redo some places..in my case several times. But in the end, it's worth it.  My new countertops look really good! I can resume light use in 2 days. I have to wait 7 days for full use.  These pictures below are before the top coat was applied.

 

before

 

after



close up



 The next pictures will be of a completed kitchen.  I'm so excited to be finished with all this work.





 

change of plans

I went to Lowes after work today and bought a gallon of Ocean Soul paint. Last week I bought a sample and painted a small section and I loved it.  Andrew wasn't quite sold--it's a pretty bold color--sort of a cobalt blue. I planned on getting the first coat on tonight but about 5 minutes after getting home with the paint, I decided I didn't like Ocean Soul anymore.  I didn't even get the can of paint opened and I had changed my mind.
So, now I'm going to spend my lunch tomorrow looking at paint colors..I'm thinking green.  I think Andrew will be pleased.
Since I didn't paint tonight, I spent a little bit of time putting things back in the cabinets. All of our food-and dishes-have been in boxes in our dining room.  It makes cooking very difficult. But things are starting to get put back in place.
I also spent most of my night cooking roasted chicken with carrots and potatoes and baking zucchini bread. It's only the second meal to be cooked in our house since we started working on the kitchen. I'm ready for it to be finished so I can start to enjoy cooking a little more.

cabinets are FINISHED!