Concrete counter tops are finally gone!

Our house had well-done concrete counter tops in the kitchen.  They were a nice Aggie maroon color that matched the paint job in the kitchen.  I didn't like them because they were a little on the high side and working on them was a pain as I am vertically challenged to begin with.  

With the water damage to the floor extending under the bottom kitchen cabinets, DH ripped the cabinets out.  We plan to gut and totally redo our kitchen in the future, so we didn't want to spend a lot of money on the kitchen at this point.  DH figured he could use the old cabinet doors and drawers and knock together bottom cabinets with odd pieces of lumber he has in his shop.  The only thing we would need to buy was Formica counter tops.  So we decided we could live with an eclectic kitchen for several years, as long as it was workable.

DH had to use a chisel and hammer, then sledge hammer to break down the concrete counter tops. It was a lot of work.  Going...

Going...

Gone.  To be continued...

LoneStar

One fine day...

...I noticed that there seemed to be a leak under our kitchen sink.  DH immediately got to work fixing it and everything went down hill from there.

Back in May, DH installed a water filter under our sink.  Apparently, one of the connections loosened and began to leak.  Unfortunately, we did not notice it until last week.  As DH began spelunking under the sink, he discovered mold and water damage.  Uh oh.  

So he began tearing out the sink cabinet and then tearing up the kitchen floor to figure out just how much damage we had.  We had a lot.  So much so that we decided that we needed to replace the entire kitchen floor.  Whee.  

Our house is an old hunting cabin and is mostly make of wood.  The kitchen floor consisted of a pine subfloor made of 2" x 10"s, then two thin layers of plywood, then OSB sheets we put down with cheap white-and-maroon-checked linoleum glued to the OSB.  DH ripped it all up and began replacing the floor.

Of course, the water damage extended UNDER the bottom kitchen cabinets, so DH had to tear them out, too.  Here is the new subfloor right up to the kitchen cabinets, just before DH pulled them out.  

To be continued tomorrow...

LoneStar

WIPping along

DH was unable to work on any of our DIY projects this weekend.  Yesterday, he spent most of the day wrassling with our truck; the horn was broken and it could not pass state inspection with a broken horn.  The car repair shop wanted over $600.00 bucks to fix it.  DH decided to do it himself.  He did it for about thirty bucks, but it took him all day and he says he thinks he ran through his repertoire of swearwords at least five times.  ;-)

While working on the truck, DH noticed how hairy it was.  (If you have a hairy dog that sheds copiously and rides in your vehicles, you will have hairy vehicles.)  So he spent part of today cleaning out the car and the truck.  It's too bad that I can't card and spin all the dog hair into yarn; I might get rich!

I finished another page on my ever-boring "One Nation."  I'm REALLY looking forward to getting this one done.


LoneStar

I'm here! and someone else's finish

I've been under the weather for a bit here lately.  And DH took a couple of days off around the July 4th weekend which also helped in letting time get away from me.

I have no fun and interesting progress pictures of our current DIY project.  DH started in on it and discovered yet another side project that needed doing before he proceeded with the planned project.  It involved tearing out more of the inside wall in the utility room and then tearing out part of the floor to work on the plumbing.  The toilet that was in the utility room is now on the front porch.  (It will someday return to its former place).  

DH also had to move and disconnect my washer and dryer for a couple of days.  This struck terror in my heart.  Being without a washer and dryer is nerve wracking!  What if I needed to wash something?!

Emma did find the new hole in the floor interesting and "helped" DH with the plumbing.

A while back, my needleworking buddy, Georgia, went with me to the monthly I35 Stitchtogether.  Georgia is 99% a quilter, but has dabbled in cross stitch in the distant past.  On our way home from Austin, we stopped off at Ginger's Needlearts and Framing.  Georgia caught sight of a nice display of shop models of Lizzie Kate Christmas designs and decided to stitch one.  She recently finished it and I think it came out great!  (And you should see how neat the back is!)

I'm about four letters away from finishing another page of the ever-boring "One Nation."  I haven't stitched a lot lately as I've been reading.  

LoneStar

More enabling

I recently passed the half-century mark and I set out to acquire stash in celebration.  The UK Cross Stitcher Magazine (and the stitching world) has been anticipating the release of "The Best of Margaret Sherry" bookazine on June 10th.

Now, usually, cross stitching magazines and books published by Cross Stitcher eventually make their way "over the pond" to the shores of the US of A and can be purchased here in the states.  I didn't want to wait.  So I bought it from a UK bookstore the day it was released (where it is now unfortunately sold out) and it arrived in 10 days.

 

I love Margaret Sherry designs; they always make me smile.  I'll enjoy stitching from this book.

LoneStar

A most unexpected morning

We've been in drought conditions here in my part of Texas for many months.  We've had rain in the forecast lots of times, but it seems to usually move north of us.  When we'd see a weather forecast predicting rain, DH and I would roll our eyes and mutter, "Yeah, right!"

So when we went to bed last night and noticed faint lightning to the north of us, we went to sleep utterly confident that it wouldn't rain.  Yeah, right.  Thunder, lightning, and rain woke us both up a couple of times and we both thought, "Oh! Rain! How nice!"  

It was still raining this morning when we got up and then it hit DH; the car and truck are parked up by the house, instead of past the spot where our 300-foot-long dirt driveway turns into a car-sucking quagmire at one particular point.  Uh oh.

DH got in his car and was sure he could make it out.  Ten minutes later he was back at the front door; the car had lost traction at the quagmire and was stuck.  So while DH removed the mowing brush hog attachment from the tractor, I walked down to the stuck car to steer it out once DH arrived with the tractor to pull it free.

Most American cars and trucks have a handy tow hook under the front of the car.  We have a German-made Jetta.  It, too, has a tow hook.  However, it is hidden behind a fancy grill.  DH ended up having to dig out the owner's manual to read up on how to access the tow hook.  To remove the grill, he had to dig out a special tool kit stowed in the trunk under the spare tire.  He had to try several different tools as they were not well-marked.  This took about fifteen minutes.  Did I mention it was raining still?

Once DH actually got the tow chain on the tow hook, the job of pulling the car free took about a minute.  He was not a happy Jetta owner at that point.

How was your morning?

LoneStar

Another WIP update

I finished another page on my WIP.  It's still boring to stitch.  I've gotten 19 stars and ten state names finished.  Stripes, letters, and stars...when will it all end?!!

DH was supposed to gut the ceiling in the utility room and replace it with new sheetrock and insulation this weekend.  He ended up having a mowing / brush clearing frenzy and spent a lot of time with the chainsaw, weedeater, and tractor.  Did I mention it was 101 degrees this weekend with a heat advisory?  ;-)

Because of his frenzy, the brush pile is bigger.  When we moved here, we "inherited" a brush pile that the former owner had made when he trimmed some trees.  He couldn't burn it before we took possession because of a burn ban that year.  There was also a burn ban the first year we were owners.  Then the next year, it was too wet to burn and DH was culling through it for usable firewood.  This year, we are ready to burn it, but we are in drought conditions and there is another burn ban.  Someday it may come to life, crawl over to, and eat the house.

LoneStar