Too Much to Blog About

Wow, whadda day! Lots and lots of progress today . . . really too much to fit into one post. Plus it's almost 10 p.m. and that 5:30 alarm is going to come very early. B is going to be here again tomorrow so we need to be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed when she arrives at 7:50 a.m. (She believes in arriving so that she can BE WORKING at 8!)

I had to empty the units on the south side of our living room/kitchen so we could move them. I almost forgot to take before pictures, but remembered just in time.

Looking from left to right, this storage unit is coming out.

Also being moved is the middle section with storage on the bottom and shelves on top.

The far right hand side is made up of four stacked boxes containing all my cookbooks.

Emptied and ready to be moved. This unit will slide down to the far right hand end where my cookbooks were.

This part will go into the new living room and hold our TV and VCR.

Now there's this empty space ready for the left hand unit.

Confused yet? More pictures of how the area now looks to be posted tomorrow.

More Progress and Hot, Hot Weather

Hot. Muggy. Sticky. Oppressive. We aren't supposed to have weather like this up here. What's goin' on, folks?

Doesn't do any good to complain and the high temps aren't going to kill us so why be grumpy and grouchy about it? Just keep drinking lots of liquids and be thankful for a refreshing shower at the end of the day.

Good progress today. Papa Pea started on the built-in storage unit that will go behind the door in the pantry. I worked on making room in various nooks and crannies of the house in which to store the scads of boxed up books and the contents of various cabinets and storage areas that are going to be torn out and/or moved in the next step which will hopefully start tomorrow.

B, our carpenter/friend, was here to put the top and doors on the pantry cabinets.

Here's the beginning of the tops being fitted.

Viola! Counter tops on and B installing doors.

There it is! All done except Mama Pea forgot to get the knobs for the doors when in the big city last time. Duh. (It wasn't the only thing I forgot. Brain on overload.)

I had B make the doors just like the units she built for us fifteen years ago in the kitchen/living room area. I just love the look of them.

The cabinets in the pantry are now ready to be stuffed with miscellaneous things I have to empty out of the kitchen/living room area so we can start on the remodeling of it.

Tomorrow we want to get all the wall shelves up in the pantry and start on the kitchen/living room demolition. Wish us luck . . . and some cooler weather, please!

Is Tomorrow A Day Of Rest?

We woke to another foggy, ishy, gray, humid day today but lucky for me and my polyurethaning, around 11 o'clock a lovely breeze came by and blew the humidity away. It still wasn't sunny but I went for it and set up in the back yard to do my polying.

Pretty soon the sun did come out . . . and it got HOT. Whew-ee, did it get hot! As long as I kept my insulated mug of cold liquids handy for frequent swigs, I was okay though. I got the two coats on the inside of the pantry cabinet doors which is all I planned for them and the first coat on both sides of the big pine pantry door.

The way the day started out I felt very fortunate to be able to get that much done. Now I can stop worrying that the cabinet doors won't be ready for B to install on Monday.

Papa Pea and I even managed to get up one set of tracks and brackets for some of the wall shelves in the pantry.

I also got just a little shy of half of the strawberry patch picked. We both had a BIG bowl of sliced berries and vanilla ice cream for dessert after a veggie sandwich for dinner. Oh my, did the berries and ice cream ever taste wonderful! After that, I sat and cleaned and processed (smooshed and put in containers for the freezer for use in smoothies later) the rest of the berries. My total strawberry harvest to date so far this year is 48 pounds and 4 ounces. Looks like it's gonna be another good strawberry year!

On a sad note, the hawk that has been harassing our poultry succeeded in getting one of our Light Sussex chicks earlier this week. The hawk had killed and was starting to eat the bird by the time Papa Pea got out there after hearing the alarm set up by the rest of the birds. Does this lend strength to the theory that light colored chickens are easier prey for hawks to spot and kill? The only good thing was that the bird was a rooster and would have gone into the freezer this fall rather than being one of our new laying hens.

Boy, this day zoomed by in a flash. Papa Pea did a lot of outside puttering including getting all the lawn around the gardens mowed which is a big, big job. Before I picked berries, I did some weeding at the ends of the rows where I was short on sawdust for mulch. B had given me a big garbage can full of wonderful sawdust from her shop so I spread that where the berries were getting splashed with mud when it rained. I was just about upside down on my head in the garbage can trying to get all the sawdust out and since I was really hot and sweaty at the time, I'm sure I now have a light coating of sawdust all over my body.

It seems like it should be about six o'clock but it's nearly half past 9. Time for me to think about getting a shower and cashing in to be ready for another fun-filled day tomorrow. Oh, but wait! I have a new bottle of sangria in the refrigerator that I want to open and try . . . anybody ever drink in the shower?

Poly-Game Called Because of Rain

I wasn't brave enough to set up outside for more brush work with the big can of polyurethane first thing this morning because of the dark and foreboding sky. And a good decision it turned out to be because it started raining a little before 11 o'clock. Instead, here's how I spent the morning:

- Early trip to town in order to beat the hordes of tourists taking over my town. (If it's tourist season, why can't we shoot them?)

- On my tuchus catching up on much neglected desk work including making phone calls and (ugh) paying bills. A lot of bills.

- Thought about going out into the garden to attack (or be attacked by) weeds but was pretty sure the bugs would be hatefully horrid because of the heavy, overcast weather. (Wasn't hard to talk myself out of that one.)

- I could have cleaned house but why bother when we're living with sawdust and insulation, tromping in and out with one thing or another and not maintaining much semblance of order as to the normal arrangement of things. (I did have to clean the bathroom though.)

- I have scads of books, decorations on the walls, and most of the contents of my kitchen cabinets which need to be boxed up and stored away in preparation for tearing into the existing kitchen/living room next week. (Yup, I'm gonna get right on that real soon here.)

- This weekend I MUST finalize to the last 1/16th of an inch, the plans for revamping the old cabinets and construction of new ones in my expanded kitchen area.

- I made a second trip into town specificially to mail paid bills and stop at the library (which never opens until TEN A.M. . . . arrgh!).

- Now we have had a late lunch and I've done a mountain of dishes. (I swear we have people come into the house in the middle of the night and make all these dirty dishes I always have to deal with.)

The rain continues to pitter-pat down on the roof (and all other exposed surfaces) so I think it would be a wonderful idea to crawl into bed for a little afternoon nap. Or maybe just stretch out and read for the rest of the day.

HAHAHAHAhah . . . ah . . . hah . . . um . . . hum . . . ooooh. Right.

A Start on the Cabinet Installation

I'm trying to contain my impatience but am disappointed that we didn't get any farther today on the pantry cabinet installation than we did.

B was able to give us only a couple of hours of her time today because of other responsibilities.

It took all three of us (plus four small boys and a shoe horn) to get the cabinet frames muscled into place. B believes in building to fit with no sloppy wiggle-waggle room.

Once in place, she set to work screwing the three units together. Good thing she's such a skinny-minnie little thing.

Above she and Papa Pea are lolly-gagging around, lying down on the job. I tell ya, the help you get these days.

After B had to pack up her tool box and leave, Papa Pea was able to finish some nailing.

I had hoped we would get the tops on the cabinets so we could work on putting up shelves on the upper part of the walls in the next few days, but it will be much easier to install the cabinet tops without the shelves in the way so we'll have to find something to occupy ourselves (whatEVER will we do??!) until B returns on Monday to finish up the cabinets. By then I should have the doors done and she can install them, too.

I hesitated setting up to do more polying today because the morning was very overcast. Now at 4:30, I realize I could have gotten a whole day's work done without a drop of rain falling. Oh well, I'll cross my fingers for a good, long day tomorrow spent with brush in hand.

Floor's Done

Yippee Skippy! The vinyl tile flooring in the pantry is done, done, done.

We're pretty darn pleased with the way these self-stick tiles went down. A very tight, precise look. If you just made a passing glance at the floor, it almost doesn't even look like individual tiles. Hooray, this choice worked out really well.

The floor did require a coat of adhesive primer (which supposedly enhances the bonding ability) before laying the tiles, but that was easy to put on with a roller.

We're getting there. (Hey, stop looking at me and keep working!)

We picked up the cabinet frames and doors from B first thing this morning and spread them out in the back yard.

It was a beautiful day (not too hot but lots of sun) and I managed to get two coats on the cabinet frames and the fronts of the doors. I'm going to call the frames good at two coats but I want to put one more coat on the door fronts and then either one or two coats on the inside of the doors.

B is coming by for a short time tomorrow to get the cabinets installed (without doors), then Papa Pea and I will work on getting the shelves mounted on the pantry walls.

Whew, another day jam-packed with fun and excitement. Now I have to go work at getting all this polyurethane off my hands . . .