Still going!

Oy! I'm still not done with my kitchen. I don't know. Either I'm getting old, or I just take a little more time doing a better job that what I did last time I did the kitchen, which was 13 years ago. Mind you, at that time I had a helper, but we did kind of just slap the paint on too, which is part of the reason of why the painting of the cupboards took so long this time. Today, I've been going all day, except for when I took an hour or so off while a friend came to visit. Not too bright on my part, now that I think about it. I should have put her to work! Anyway, I've got a little over half of my floor installed. Well, maybe about 2/3 is done, but I just can't do any more tonight. My back is killing me from stooping over rolling the tiles once I've done a section. I've been really putting some good pressure on the roller, and giving it a good go-over so I don't have any lifting corners. Most of what took so long today was repairing some of the old tiles that needed replacing and filling with wood filler. I had about six of them that I had to replace completely, and I'm telling you, for reasonably cheap tiles I bought at Price Club 13 years ago, those suckers were stuck down pretty damned good! It was a miserable gooey job peeling the ones I needed to replace, and much cursing was happening! I was really hoping to get my counters painted tonight after my floor was done, or so I thought. Ha! Nice try! Oh well, and my husband is coming home tomorrow, so this will be the first time I took on a job like this while he was away without me finishing it. I hate that! But then again, I'll have a few hours in the early part of the day to get some more done, so I better get my sorry and sore ass to bed and get some sleep!

Night all... ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Olivia

Gotta keep cool!

Since it's so hot here right now, but I still have some work to do in my kitchen project, I decided tonight that I would clean out my fridge. At least the cool air emanating from the open doors of the fridge helped to keep me a little cooler while I cleaned. My fridge is so big, which I think I had previously mentioned, but I love it! We bought it a few years back. It's a bottom mount freezer model, and the only thing I would ever change would be to have that freezer door pull out rather than open to the side. I love having the freezer on the bottom though. It makes so much sense to me, since you're in the fridge way more than you go into the freezer. Not having to bend and stoop to get my produce out of the crispers is so much nicer, and way more convenient.

I really love the look of the stainless steel Frigidaire Refrigerators, but we opted for plain white, so it would match our other appliances. The outside finish is textured, which I was a little hesitant with at first, figuring those little crevices would be a magnet for grime to collect in, but it cleans up quite nicely with my handy dandy microfiber cloths from Norwex. Now if I can just get my husband to stop polluting the front of the fridge with cheesy magnets and crap hanging from them, it will stay looking all pretty in the new kitchen!

Olivia

I wanna sit!

I really wish my kitchen were bigger. At least big enough to put in a small table and a couple of chairs. I was looking at home furniture at a couple sites online, and I love those bar height tables with a couple chairs. We used to have a table and chairs in here, but when we bought the new fridge a few years back, it had to go on another wall, as it is too big to fit in where the old fridge was. Right now I have my icky microwave cart in that spot. My long term plan is to get another base cabinet to fit that area, and extend my counter. Then I want to build a shelf under my cabinets for my microwave. That would give me a lot of extra counter and cupboard space. But it won't help me being able to have a small table and chairs. I'd have room to put a little set in next to my fridge if I were to build in my now portable dishwasher I think, but then I'd lose my double sink. I'd have to weigh the pros and cons of that, and decide what I want more, a double sink or a bar height bistro set. Hmm, I think I should have thought about this before I started re-doing my kitchen! I guess I'm just one of those people that will never be completely happy. Maybe I need a new house! ;-)

Olivia

Kitchen update

It's getting closer to the end, this big redecorating project I've been working on. Last night I put the tiles up on the one wall I wanted a back splash on. It goes from corner to corner on the wall that my stove is on. All the tiles are complete except for two that I have to do "L" cuts on, which I need to go buy a special saw blade to put in the Dremel. And then I have to do the mosaic border as well, which I would have done last night, but ran out of adhesive, so I have to get some of that too. So I have to make another run to Home Depot, which I'm going to do very shortly. I think I'm going to pick up the floor tiles while I there as well. I don't know if I'll get to them today, because I still have to paint the counter tops when I finish the mosaics, but at least I'll have them here and can start putting those in one evening after work this coming week. It's looking really good so far, yet still in a state of chaos with everything pulled out from the walls! Good thing my husband isn't home, because I don't think he could slink around everything like I can!

Olivia

Still painting!

Wow! Did I take on a big job or what?! I've been stuck in my kitchen the past few days, painting, painting, painting! So far I have the ceiling done, the walls, and most of the cupboards. I still have one more base cupboard to do, and finish the doors with another coat. Then I have miles of trim! Okay, so it's not miles, but I have a lot of trim, and I had previously painted it black, and am now painting it all white, so it's going to take about 3 coats at least. But it's going to look great when it's all done! I'm also going to do new flooring, because as you know if you've done any kind of re-decorating, once you do one part new and nice, the rest looks crappy! Of course my floor is 13 years old, and was just cheap peel and stick tiles at the time. They yellowed on me, and I was never really happy with them after that. I'm also toying with the idea of doing a tile backsplash. I'll have to give that a bit more thought. It's practical for us, as my husband, although he's a great cook, he's definitely not a clean cook, so wiping tiles clean would be a lot easier to manage than scrubbing walls. And I'm still deciding how I'm going to do my counter tops. Will I ever finish?

Olivia