Fresh New Ideas for Keeping Your Home Uninhabitable - Get 'Em While They're Hot off the Non-Serviceable Stove!

You know what makes an awesome plaything early on a Saturday morning? A gas stove. 

Otherwise known as "That time my partner in crime came home from a business trip, stopped off to care for his 94 year old mother, and then dove right into the kitchen renovations."

For the throngs of people clamoring to know if we have gotten out from under the massive mountains of staph induced laundry, the answer is...no.

We just decided to coat it all with a layer of sawdust.

Happy weekend all!

I Got a New Ceiling for my Birthday!

For all those people (I'm sure there must be at least one) who have been waiting with bated breath to see how our kitchen renovation has been coming along, I have exciting news! I got a ceiling for my birthday last week!

There's been a lot of progress since I last posted pictures in March, but it's all been mostly electrical stuff way up in the ceiling to install these lights:

But now, lucky us! We have a celing!

Goodbye hitting my boy's floor with a broom to make sure he's out of bed on early school days! Goodbye insulation hanging above the countertops where we prepare food!

Meanwhile, I'm not sure I ever got around to showing the end result of the cabinet installation on the other side.

Although he's out of focus, I thought it was quite nice of Sugar to take it upon himself to demonstrate the use of the cabinets.

If you missed the pictures of the wall being knocked out and how it used to look when it was a separate room, click here! Quite the change already, right?

Wordless Wednesday {Kitchen Update: It Might Be Pizza Night}

Installing Ikea Kitchen Cabinets Requires Many Uses of the "F" Word...and other things we've been up to lately...

We've almost hit the one year mark on the home renovations, but we're making progress!  We're getting in the kitchen cabinets, with much help of course.

Because it always helps to have a toddler speeding things along.  And by "speeding things along" I mean "Getting every last piece put together tightly before she figures out ANOTHER way to destroy something..."

All in all, it's starting to shape up!

I Think the Emergency Room is Going to Start Giving Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Rewards Points Soon. But maybe just to us...

I feel like I should be thinking up cute and original Valentine's crafts to pin on Pinterest in hopes of driving people here by the truckloads.

But the fact of the matter is, my school's main interest in Valentine's Day is in arguing over whether or not it's appropriate to celebrate in the first place.  Besides, the REAL holiday comes the day after Valentine's Day, when the chocolate goes on sale for half price.

I did learn how to make these cute socks from watching this video from the Chicken Chick:

I suppose that if I REALLY got my act together, I could buy some heart shaped beads and make the Head of Demolition festive footwear for Valentine's Day.

We're still getting tiled around here - the living room is more or less done now:

I say "more or less" because apparently the entire thing needs to be sealed.  I don't know how that's going to go, since our Chief Content Provider and Head of Demolition is hellbent on spreading as much food on the un-sealed floor as is humanly possible.

Don't be fooled by the sweet smile in this next picture.  I'm sure she was thinking something along the lines of, "Thank you for this delightful palette with which I can create my masterpiece!  I'd like to transform the tile into a gorgeous shade of purple and red reminiscent of Jackson Pollock yet with a smeared and ground in look."

Meanwhile, we've doing our best to keep the pediatrician, urgent care facilities, and emergency rooms in business this month.

Our Head of Security has been battling Staph tooth and nail since late December.  He deserves a medal for the trudging through his midterm exams (and getting mostly As!) with his various ailments.

But, he had to settle for Phish Food.  Amazingly enough, that was an Amazon affiliate link (meaning I will make like 8 cents if you buy the ice cream upon clicking it - see full disclosure here.)

I have absolutely no idea why anyone would buy ice cream from Amazon. I just wanted to see if they sold it.

Happy weekend all!

If Only We'd Known That We Could Have Just Locked the Cat in a Bathroom, We Wouldn't Have Had to Do This Whole Kitchen Renovation Thing

For those beating down the door to see pictures of how the kitchen renovation is going...you're time has come at last!

"Isn't it driving you crazy?"

Why yes, yes it is.  It IS driving us crazy to have a cement floor since last May.

But it will all be worth it!!!!!

Because I took THIS photo the other day using ISO 400 at night!  Indoors!  And with NO other light except the ones that my Partner in Crime put in!!!! On my D5000, which is like...unheard of!

The excellent indoor lighting means that what does or doesn't happen with the floor or the cabinets or  the flies and wasps that are making their way in due to the gaping holes in the walls doesn't seem nearly as bad...

As long as I can figure out how to use the fancy light switches my Partner in Crime installed.

It turns out that those cute little things I thought were paint pots at first glance were like the donut holes of the construction world. 

Here's a spot where my Partner in Crime had to put one of those little holes back into the ceiling.  Because it turns out that you can't install ceiling lighting directly into a vent:

And so now we are still traipsing to and from the fridge day in and day out on bare cement, but it is VERY well lit bare cement!  I have never been so pleased with bare cement in all my life!

Despite the fact that having giant holes in the walls and ceiling is GREAT for calling your almost 17 year old downstairs with the handle of a broom or mop (whatever it does or doesn't do for insect control), my Partner in Crime continues to slave away to get us some semblance of walls and ceilings back together:

All in all, there was only one remaining problem with the bare cement. With the wall removed, it was next to impossible to keep That-Cat-I-Never-Talk-About from using it as a giant litter box.  So we confined him to our bathroom.

It's weird, but he kind of loves it there.  He's got his own cozy little spot under the sink, and he has visiting hours from from the Pain-in-the-Neck-Cat-Who-Thinks-He's-a-Human.  Or dog.

I forgot to show "before" pictures, but here are right after the before, knocking out the wall pictures!


If you'd like to see more "kitchen re-do" pictures, here are other posts:

 Walls May Come and Go But Toddlers Requesting Breakfast Out of the Garbage is Forever

 Our Kitchen Renovation Has Leaked Out All Over the Living Room

 Of Digestive Disease and Washi Tape (I had no idea putting washi tape on drinking glasses would be so popular!)

Walls May Come and Go, But Toddlers Requesting Breakfast Out of the Garbage is Forever

My partner in crime and I and I are a perfect match for each other home improvement and DIY-wise, because he lets the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I never finish anything.

Which is just a different way of saying we've had cement floors in our dining area for half a year now, and we're barely creeping toward the finish line.

I wanted to post "before and after" pictures, but the truth is that I never take before pictures, and by the time we ever finish everything, I will have forgotten where I put these "during" pictures.

So I offer my normal: during and during pictures.

I'm pretty sure I posted it on my Facebook page when I decided I couldn't stand the carpet in the dining area one more nanosecond.  Of course "before" pictures would have wasted that nanosecond, but click here to see it in all its the bar mitzvah  prep glory back in 2010.

Here's how it more or less looked from the kitchen side, although the refrigerator had been pulled over and the pantry door opened and the garbage can providing back up reinforcements to keep all cats and toddlers out of the bare cement dinging room.

Because.  Our cement floor has a great big old sign on it that says, "Use me as a litter box!"  Apparently.

The bad part was, the carpet that used to be on top of the bare cement also apparently had a huge sign on it that said, "Please PLEASE use me for a giant litter box!  For the love of cats, there is NO other place to relieve your furry self in this entire house!  Especially not the litter box."

And so I did the logical thing which was to ignore the problem as long as I could and then start ripping up the carpet on a day when I couldn't stand it even a moment longer.

Then my partner in crime needed to help me, because to paraphrase my off site travel journalist (who was then two or three), He "wants it the way he wants it!"

Here's where the surprise came in for me.  After five years of talking about taking down the wall, I just figured that talking was as far as we'd ever get.  What I didn't realize was that my partner in crime would not want to move forward on replacing the carpet until the wall had disappeared.

So then I figured, "Well okay, no big deal.  My partner in crime has plenty of hammers and mallets in the garage."

But he kept throwing around words like, "load bearing" and I decided against throwing caution to the wind.  Because you just never know when wind might turn in to the next hurricane.  So that's why we hired someone to knock down the wall instead.

There's still PLENTY to be done.  If you've ever known the joy of NOT doing the breakfast dishes on a Saturday morning, you'll realize how wonderful it was to have my partner in crime working directly over the sink and dishwasher right after breakfast:

And that's why, a kajillion dollars and much blood, sweat, and tears later we are still no closer to having something besides bare cement in the dining area.

Which only goes to show that walls may come and go, but toddlers requesting to eat breakfast out of the garbage is forever:

To totally change the subject without warning, last month I promised a free recipe card printable.  I've been lollygagging a little, because I've never actually offered a printable before, free or otherwise.

I think I have this a good, workable size (4x6) but if you have any trouble with it at all, I will certainly be willing to tweak it and re-post.  Please let me know how and if it works out for you (in the comments).

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

If you'd like to see more of the kitchen re-do, try these posts:

If Only We'd Have Known We Could Have Just Locked the Cat in the Bathroom, We Wouldn't Have Had to Do this Whole Kitchen Renovation Thing

Our Kitchen Renovation Has Leaked Out All Over the Living Room

Of Digestive Disease and Washi Tape (I had no idea putting washi tape on drinking glasses would be so popular!)