Changes, changes, and more changes...

The floor continues to be a problem child but we have settled on the type of flooring.  It is a "green" product called marmoleum aka linoleum.  The product is very thick, if the dogs have an accident it will clean up easily without damaging the floor.   There is both a floating version AND a glue down version.  The colors we like are in the glue down sheet version so the next step is to find a local installer and see how much it will cost us to have it put in.   

This is called Granada and should look nice but I am still looking at other colors as I would like more color and more contrast with my pale gold cabinets.

The counter is down to three choices, blue pearl granite, soapstone, or one of the new laminates.   

Yes the cabinets are picked they are unfinished birch that we will finish with Tung oil which is another "green" finish.  It turns the pale birch a lovely soft pale gold that will contrast nicely with the darker colors in the floor and counter.  

Next thing to pick back splash and wall colors...

Problems and Solutions

The kitchen renovation is moving slowly forward. 

The floor has been a stumbling block, it has areas where the old tile have lifted, broken, and left holes in the tile floor.  Unfortunately the 9 by 9 inch tile size and the age of the tile means it is probably vinyl asbestos.  Sigh current recommendation for this type of floor is to leave it in place and float a floor over it if it is in good shape.  Well most of ours is but there are those two damaged areas....  and those areas have seemed to be an insolvable problem.   

If our floor was on a slab the recommendation to use a self leveling flooring compound would work but our floor is on top of a wood floor on top of a wood subfloor.  Our damaged areas are bare wood so anything liquid you put on them would cause problems as the wood absorbs the moisture from the liquid and then swells.  This would cause more tiles to lift and break which would totally defeat the purpose of the self leveling compound.  

Today a salesman at Menards had another suggestion.  This wonderful man suggested we find a tile that is the same thickness as our old tiles and use a modern adhesive to use the new tiles to patch our holes forming a level floor ready for us to install a floating floor system of our choice.   :-) Tomorrow we will start looking for cheap tile of the right size.

So with the floor problem hopefully solved we again looked at various floating floor options.  Sigh once again product weakness and our house design conspired against us to limit our choices.    We have lovely large windows on the south and the west side of our kitchen/breakfast nook.   That area gets lots of sun during the summer months.   The vinyl laminate floating tiles we had first chosen have a problem with sunlight and heat on them but there is another workable solution for our kitchen a floating porcelain tile system.  We need to do a bit more research but for now this is what we will be going with.

recycled kitchen...

WOW! It has been a long time since we did anything in the house but within the last month we have had some more movement on my projects.   First off the stove stopped working, wry grin it is only 23 years old but instead of trying to repair it we opted to buy a new more efficient stove that will work better with the way we cook now.    Removing the old stove revealed how bad off the kitchen really is.  So off we went to look into options.   Working with the designers at a couple of big box stores we came up with a much more workable layout then the current one. 

 

Then we found some discontinued unfinished cabinets on sale for 20% off  AND we found all the cabinets we needed for our new plan :) total cost under $500 a much sweeter price then the over 2 grand price we were being quoted for the low end pre-finished cabinets.  

The counter tops will be a fairly new Formica laminate called Travertine Silver that very successfully mimics the Silver Travertine tile I had fallen in love with.   Sigh it is a special order but is still less then the other options we explored for the counter tops. 

Back splash will eventually be glass tiles.  Floors probably vinyl in planks or squares depending on if we go for a wood or stone look on the floor....  Toli is leaning towards a hickory color/pattern while I am still being transfixed by those lovely stones imposters.

We have sidewalks!

Few days ago they put in the new street curbs and now we even have a sidewalk but still no road.  Boy does it look odd.  . Once they actually get the road finished we can get to work on the deck/front steps.  Garage is nearly done and I am really looking forward to seeing how it looks.

I still have one box for the garden to get setup but the others are growing well.  I think we will have some nice salads year.   Now if I could just get the cucumbers to grow as well as the onions, lettuce and radishes. I currently have 6 tomatoes doing well and 3 struggling in our intense heat.  Beans are coming up in all the right places so we will have a nice selection of beans later and beets and Swiss chard too. 

I hate construction!

Today it became very apparent that the guy from DOT did not know what he was talking about.  Our  day lilies are not safe where they are.  We need to dig up and move all the day lilies from the bed near the cherry tree and about half of the day lilies on the driveway side of the yard.   On the up side for the first time since we moved in we have good water pressure...

We have gotten our side of the garage primed and ready for paint.  Toli decided not to paint it pure white but rather a very pale lavender similar to the color we have in the breakfast nook.  That color changes throughout the day from "white" to grey to very pale lavender.  Like the breakfast nook we will be using a greyed green for the trim.

I am going to be job hunting later this week.  After being seduced with pretty photos of bunnies and low prices I weakened and ended up saying yes to a total of three new angoras.  One is an adorable lilac tort English Angora.  He will be for display only I am NOT getting into the Fraggle Rock bunnies.  The other two are both Satin Angoras.  Do si do is a chocolate agouti doe that will hopefully make some chinchilla babies when bred to d'Artagnan.  The black buck needs a name yet but he will be a good match with Cloud Flower my sable pearl.

Slowly but surely the house and garden are getting done. 

Toli has all of our side of the garage ready to prime and paint.  He still needs to work on our neighbors side of the front.  He has to repair their door and sand down that side then all the prep work will be done.   Grin yes we are doing the FRONT of the neighbors side of the garage.  They paid for him to do it and will buy any supplies needed for their side.  It actually is in our best interests to make at least the front look cared for since our garage is one building shared with the neighbors.

The back door is done but I still need to scrape the bathroom ceiling and paint it.  Then there are those front steps...

Two of my four garden boxes are in place and filled with something like Mel's Mix. Toli will be putting on their grids today and then I will start to plant.  The smaller 3 by 3 box and the 1 x 4 box will have to wait until the wind dies down so I can mix the "dirt" for them.   Grin I did way overbuy some parts of the dirt mix so may have to sweet talk Toli into another long narrow box to plant tomatoes in since I have ended up with more indet mater plants then I have room for if I want pole beans...  Actually I have lots of room for plants it is just those climbing plants that I am lacking room for.   When all the boxes are in place and ready to each box will have a trellis on one side so there will be a total of 15 ft of trellis space unfortunately with at least 8 mater plants in there that will take up most of that room leaving me none for cucumbers or pole beans or other climbing plants.

Talked to building department today and found out exactly what we need for a building permit.  Sigh I could not believe all the crap they want.  I expected some of it but not all of it.  Thank goodness I had taken Nicks advice and have one of the folks at the box store drawing up the deck plans. That will take care of those plans but we still have to find the pins marking our lot and draw up a plot plan for the permit and of course everything has to be in duplicate...  Not sure I really want to mess with building folks but sigh it is that or pay someone to do the work for me.

Early on in my paint research I was shown some stuff from RustOleum that they make for doors.  I liked the sounds of it and today we picked up a can of the Ivory for the back door.  The stuff smells as it is oil based and takes more smelly stuff for the clean up. Toli got one coat of paint on the door today and will put another one on tomorrow if the weather holds.  I think it will work out nicely for that door but not sure I will want it on the front door.

1 light or 2?

Toli inspecting his painting job

We were only supposed to paint the walls and window trim in the nook but after looking at the walls and the ceiling Toli changed his mind. After all the work done on the walls of the breakfast nook the rest of the kitchen looks horrid! Now we are going to paint all of the kitchen.

Wry grin that is what Nick and I have been trying to tell Toli needed to be done from the start.  Good thing I bought enough of my wall paint for the whole kitchen, the bathroom, and the hall.   

Yesterday I got the ceiling paint for the kitchen and Toli took down the fan/light so he could clean the ceiling in that area.  The fan was really put in very poorly even the box was hanging below the ceiling level!  Toli was not at all happy with what he found.   Having that light down makes me wonder if we should just patch that hole and install two ceiling lights in the kitchen.  One would be centered in the breakfast nook and one would be "centered" in the kitchen area.  I think the extra light would be wonderful and right now is the time to put them in...

Toli is home and ready to paint the windows in the nook.  I was allowed to be lazy and not paint today because the construction out front had the water off all day.  Since the road was torn up for new storm drains they also put in a new water main.  According to the construction worker we should have water pressure now :-)

The bathroom is on hold until we can get a delivery truck to our house.  Wry grin that torn up and closed road is a limiting factor.  As I told someone the other day you can't get to my house.  The fact of the matter is there are ways to get close but not with a delivery truck.  I am not at all sure how they are picking up trash right now since the alley is blocked at one end ...

Garage is on hold due to the weather and Nick being busy with Hunters home schooling this week.

Front steps are on hold until next month.  Building codes, building permits, and sigh detailed drawings are all slowing progress on that front.  If we get the design I have in mind built it will be really nice.  The damaged steps will be covered over by a low deck that runs 10 ft across the front of the house and 6 ft out from the house.  There will be steps completely across the front of the deck with a some sections of step on the sides sorta like \____/    Since the deck is so low the steps won't need a railing but we will put one along the sides of the deck.   I am looking forward to seeing it happen.

Painting finally!

Toli wanted to see what the green paint for the window trim looked like so last night he used it on the side of a  window.  The effect is very different then what I expected.  As he put it the color makes the window vanish and brings the outside in.

And today I finally got to put on a coat of my pale violet paint to see how it would look. The violet is very subtle and has a slight grey undertone which I think adds a nice dimension to the color.   You can see in the photo that it barely shows any color.  And that window really does vanish.

More prep work today.  Looks like it may be Sunday before I actually get to see how the pale violet will look in the breakfast nook.

Cold weather has put a stop on the prep work for the garage and the front steps are on hold for a building permit.

The bathroom has become a big point of dissension between DH and I.  We have all the stuff we need being delivered tomorrow to do a nice renovation in there but DH wants to store it for a few months...  Problem is I have seen where that will lead ie it remains in storage and nothing gets done.

Just back from Home Depot.  After looking over our projects Nick and I decided the cost of a paint sprayer was well worth it.  He picked out a big one that we can use on both the big 5 gallon cans of primer and paint for the garage and the smaller 1 gallon cans for use in the house.  With all the painting projects ahead of us it only makes sense.  Alex decided to show off how big the new paint sprayer is.

Today we will prime the breakfast nook and hopefully  tomorrow we will be able to paint it, I am not so sure of the colors the grands helped pick.  The current plan is for the walls to be pale violet and trim green... They do look well when we hold the paint chips next to each other.  Lets hope they look as good in real life. To be honest almost anything would look better then this.

The adventure starts

School is out so Nick is not working.  That leaves him with lots of free time to come over and motive my lazy butt.  He has been coming over and helping me (IE doing most of the work while I babysit) and slowly but surely we are getting things done.   Saturday he sanded the back of the garage, then we tackled the breakfast nook.  Ugh that was a messy undertaking.  The fridge is back in the little nook over the stairs leaving the breakfast area empty and ready to prep for painting.  Today I tackled the two windows in the nook getting them cleaned and ready for paint and this evening DH and I will be working on the remains of the wall paper in the breakfast nook.   Goal for the end of this week is to get the breakfast nook painted and the table back in place.  Oh yeah I may have to buy a couple of chairs so we have someplace to sit while eating...  

Next week we tackle the bathroom.