Unexpected Visitor

Yesterday I had a SUPER rare moment of having the morning to myself as Bennett slept in for two whole hours. I got the opportunity to get stuff done, and was carrying laundry to the basement when I heard a bump and scurry. Crap.

I wasn't sure what it was since the cat was still out on his early morning prowl and the dog was crashed out on her pouf upstairs, so I dropped the laundry and crept toward the room, to find a bird by the window!

All of the windows in the basement are glass block, some with small vents, but none were big enough to leave open, close the door and let the bird find the way.

So, I shooed him up to the kitchen and managed to get one of the windows cracked open enough for him to flutter out before he hurt himself. Hopefully the cat wasn't waiting.

What to do with crap?

Once your family is sick of zucchini bread, cupcakes, risotto, Barbara Kingsolver's Disappearing Zucchini Orzo, fried zucchini, sauteed zucchini, zucchini in fajitas/quesadillas, you shred that mountain of zucchinis into manageable amounts and freeze them. 22 cups worth to be precise.

And there are still more setting on.

In other news, our neighborhood deer has been spotted sleeping in a backyard across the street. Awesome. No wonder he's visited several times, tearing up more tomatoes, nibbling more cukes, and razing the peppers back to the stems YET AGAIN.


Let's hope eating hot peppers gave him some indigestion. Grumble.Last weekend we finally took some heavy-handed measures and installed a mesh fence around the entire garden.


You can barely see it, but there it is in all it's 8 foot glory. Just try it again mister deer.

If You Give a Moose a Muffin

Bennett has been in love with Laura Numeroff's book If You Give a Moose a Muffin. So, this morning we made muffins for his moose.






Needless to say, it was an awesome morning!

Baseboards

Remember all the progress on the house? Well, it has obviously come to a dead stop. The last bit of work we got done was the baseboards.

We ended up trashing the baseboards that were in our house through the construction process. The low(er) cost solution was milling new baseboards ourselves out of MDF. First, B and Pop cut the sheets down to boards the appropriate height.


Then they routed out the detail edges and a groove down the middle for some decorative molding.


Then the molding was glued and nailed into place with the air gun and some small brads.
After a thorough sanding we gave them several coats of primer and paint.

It like a sweatshop at our house that weekend; everyone participated in some aspect of creating all of the baseboard we needed.



We finished getting the last of it installed the night before I went into labor. All that's left to do is sand down the wood filler from the nail holes and give it all one last coat of paint.


Looks pretty rich, no? You'd never know it only cost us a couple hundred buckaroos to mill enough to trim out the foyer, living room, dining room, kitchen and mudroom.

B has moved outside this summer, projectwise. More on that later, the Monkey is calling...

Upper Cabinets!

B has spent the past weekend hanging his custom-built cabinets and the last couple of days trimming them out...
This massive corner unit will have an "appliance garage" with doors on the underside.
They are trimmed out in el-cheapo mdf, which is perfect for painting. We wanted to have a microwave over the stove, the kind that has the vent built in. The problem we encountered is that the stove is 40" wide, a tad bigger than the standard 30" that most stoves are. Over the stove microwaves are designed to fit that 30". So, the "fluted columns" are helping to fill in the gap that will be there.
B still has to fill the holes and prime it all white. Then I'll be kicked out of the house while B paints all the cabinetry with oil. That stuff stinks to high heaven.
After the painting the last steps will be hanging the crown molding around the top and ordering or making the doors... B is now beginning to think he'll just build them himself. At this stage in the game, there's no doubt in my mind that he doesn't have the ability. This guy has Mad Skills.

Base Cabinets

B spent the weekend building base cabinets for the kitchen. The cabinet you see below will have a bank of drawers all the way down, including a couple of deep ones for pots and pans that don't fit in the storage provided by the stove.

These three on the other side of the stove will each have a single drawer at the top of them an regular cabinet drawers below.
So the last of the old cabinets will be occupied by Ty, 'cause Miles will never find him in there... perfect for sneak attacks.
Man, looking at Miles in the photo makes me realize he's becoming the old grey man. I remember the days his nose was solid black. Ah, well. He and B share the same birthday and are exactly 20 years apart, which means he'll be turning 12 this year. We've been really fortunate to have such sound dogs. They've both had their traumas but for the most part they've been happy and healthy over the years.

New Floors Part 2

Well, here are a couple pics of the bamboo flooring in the foyer and in the kitchen. The only room we don't have completed is the living room. We bought some decorative trim to frame out the room and and add some panache and had to wait for it to come in. Well, it's in and ready to go, so that will be the focus of Easter weekend while Pop and the family are in town.

From the kitchen looking towards the front door:
From the front door looking into the kitchen:
And here's a good look at the floor. You can really appreciate the color. Mmmm... caramel.
Notice the new base cabinet carcases! With shelves! B just needs to build the drawers and trim them out, then we'll be ready for painting and doors.

Cabinetry!

THERE ARE CABINETS IN MY KITCHEN!!!

B started building the cabinets for the kitchen this weekend. Here's the beginnings of the pantry made out of melamine board.
He used a prefabricated board with predrilled holes as a template to set the drill pattern so we would have fully adjustable shelves all the way up.
The pantry in place:
The final cabinets installed:
There is an additional small one above the pantry and tall ones above the fridge surround. We designed the surround to accommodate a larger fridge if we ever need to upgrade. B thought about building a skinny cabinet that could be knocked down if necessary, but there really isn't enough space to bother. He'll center the fridge we have and add some trim around the sides to hide the empty space. B wants to run cork up the side of the fridge surround to post stuff.

Next step now that the carcases are complete is to build the fronts out of mdf. Then they get primed and painted. Once he's done building the rest, we'll order the doors for the whole kitchen.

I can't tell you how exciting this is. We started this process in June, and now the end is in sight. Sigh. Cheers to that!

Dusty

Okay, so I already told you fine folks about eminent deaths of sanders around here. What is the cause of this death you ask? It's death by dust. Concrete dust. It's like baby powder, and since the counters are dyed black, it's like black baby powder. Notice the layers of it on the poor shopvac, let alone on the floors. I have less sympathy for the floor tiles since I know they will soon be replaced with something infinitely more pleasing (and a whole less dusty).There is so much dust, even B is covered, except for the rubber glove marks, as noted by the example below. Another tip for concrete sanding: wear gloves. If you think drywall dust can dry your skin, you haven't seen anything until you've sanded concrete counters for hours on end.And here's the results of all that sanding and all that hideous dust. Beautiful, level, shiny, sealed concrete counters. By the way, when you are trying to get on top of the dust control, also plan on sacrificing a mop. The water turns the dust into sludge, which you then have to scrape up with a putty knife. And then remop about thirty times. Then you'll have to mop again once you sneeze black soot all over your semi-clean floor. Not so great.
Luckily we are officially DONE with concrete sanding dust. Finished. Finito. Vertig. Fini. After we finish the rest of the drywall in the kitchen and foyer, our house will officially be dust free. Then I will only have to contend with NORMAL PEOPLE dust, like dog hair pills that collect under the couch, and the kind of grime a little spritz of pledge and a swish of a cotton cloth can tame. Ah, it's the simple fantasy that keeps me going.

Next will be installing the backsplash. I'm going to use white subway tile again. I think it'll work well with the age of the house. It's classic material used in a modern context.

I'll post better pics soon... with a good view of our beautiful new (old) stove in place...

Construction

Here are some photos from the concrete counter construction:



Here's the form, made of melamine board. The melamine board has a plastic coating that kept the concrete from sticking to it. They added 2x4 braces to the front "bar" area to help support it while the pour was happening.





You can see the rebar and mesh embedded in the mix. All in all, it took all day to build the form and get it poured and smooth.



Here's a good view from the kitchen into the dining room area. Notice the missing wall! The wood slab on the counter is actually a form to mold an opening where the sink will go, the opening below is for the dishwasher. As soon as the concrete was pretty well set, the boys took the sides of the form off.

Next post: Finishing the concrete!