Today was more about the walls.  Leonard mudded nearly all day. In the afternoon we went shopping for appliances.  2 stores and we didn’t buy anything until Alex returned to Lowes for the vent fan.  Do you love or hate your fridge/dishwasher/range?  If so, please leave a comment.  We want to buy today for delivery Friday. After we came home from the fruitless marathon trip, Lil wanted to help.  We let her use a scraper [...]

Today, the walls went up! First, all the electric and plumbing had to be finalized.  Then we added insulation (itchy stuff I tell ya) between studs. Then drywall was hung. insulation in the walls When we were at Cory and Steve’s for dinner (thanks guys!) Len broke through the dining room wall for our pass through!  I hadn’t exactly told him my lighting plans so now we have to undo some of the work, but [...]

Here I am working today on the stove alcove.  I took down all the studs for the old divider walls and cut out nails in prep to repair the drywall tomorrow. Notice Hawise in the corner of the picture?  She loves to monitor our work and steal pieces of drywall to chew on in her crate.  We try to stop her, of course, because who knows what ingesting gypsum will do to a silly dog. [...]

This morning we met the dumpster dude and loaded the debris into the dumpster. The empty kitchen looks much better and hopefully less dust will be tracked around now.

Day 1 of demolition is ongoing, but I am released from duty to report to y’all. Wall cabinets were, as I suspected, built in to the space.  Some even had mortise and tennon joints!  Not many were recoverable, but those that are will be reused by Leonard or donated to our local Habitat for Humanity store. We found plaster and lathe behind the large wall of cabinets.  Some of the lathe was damp.  We pulled [...]

Demolition starts on the kitchen tomorrow.  The general plan (I hope) is that we tear out and repair walls tomorrow, mud and sand the next day, then paint on the 28th before laying cork floor. The problem is that I don’t know what color to paint. The floors are amber hued cork.  Cabinets are light stained oak.  Countertops can be any virutally any color we want because the concrete and inclusions have limitless possibilities.  We [...]

Our Japanese friend Miyu sent a holiday package today.  It was really fun to open!  Lil got candy and lots of Hello Kitty gear.  Miyu sent Alex and I two “pocketable” eco bags with this cute little note: Of course we already have tons of reusable bags (and more in the basement for sale), but none so adorably Japanese.  Yeah for the global spread of sustability!