Cabinet bottoms

Our goal for this long Labor Day weekend is to get the bottom kitchen cabinets made and hopefully get our kitchen sink installed so we can stop washing dishes in the bathroom sink.

Yesterday, DH was able to get the cabinet base made with help from Emma.  Because we don't want to waste time painting these cabinets, DH covered the floor of the cabinets by gluing down some of our leftover vinyl flooring.  We want to get the cabinets made quickly so we can get all the kitchen stuff out of the den and back into the kitchen where it belongs.

These will be eclectic but usable cabinets.  No painting.  I will polyurethane the face frame and two ends, but that will be it.  And we're reusing the old doors and drawers and they won't win any beauty contests anyway.

"Must protect male human from annoying nail gun!"

Base being built with supervision.

Adding plywood floor to base.

"I think there's an air bubble right there."

Cabinet base with vinyl flooring glued down.

LoneStar

Painting walls makes the old cabinets uglier

My kitchen was previously painted a nice shade of Aggie maroon.  I don't have a problem at all with Aggie maroon, I just don't want that color on my kitchen walls.  I like white walls.  Everything goes with white.

The old cabinets were/are an ugly shade of beige.  Did I mention that they are painted with flat wall paint?  Yeah.  They don't stay clean and get dirty real easily.  If you paint your walls white, it makes your ugly old beige cabinets beige-er and uglier. 

Before priming and ugly.

After priming and uglier.

LoneStar

Are we done yet?!

This summer's heat is really wearing on me.  I'm all done with summer.  Heck, I'd settle for temperatures in the 90s instead of these constant 100+ degree F. days.  And rain would be nice, too.

DH was fighting his allergies this weekend, so he didn't get as much done as he wanted to.  Still, he was able to get the sheetrock ready for me to paint.

All the stuff that was in our kitchen is currently piled in our den, including some cabinets.  DH managed to mount two of them back on the wall in their proper place - YAY!  But I've still got tons of stuff stacked around the den.  But two cabinets is progress!

Piles of cabinetry and other stuff.

 

Two cabinets gone.

More piles of stuff & Inspector Emma.

DH mounting the two cabinets.

LoneStar

A Halloween finish

Yesterday, I finished a Halloween ornament out of the recent Just Cross Stitch magazine (Sept./Oct. 2011), the Pirate Sock Monkey on page 20 by Raise the Roof Designs.  I stitched him on 28 count Lime Green hand-dyed Zweigart linen with DMC and Rainbow Gallery Petite Treasure Braid for his gold earring.  I changed a few of the colors slightly to better go with the green fabric.

If you've seen the picture of the original ornament in the magazine, you'll notice that the designers stitched the monkey on pink fabric.  You'll notice that I did not.  C'mon, y'all didn't really think I'd stitch something on pink, did you?!

As I'm waiting on some instructions as to how my DSisIL wants me to stitch my nephews' names on the cuffs of their Christmas stockings, I pulled out a WIP to work on for a bit - "Liberty Lane."

LoneStar

Rocking along

My current WIP "Moonlit Kitties" met an untimely demise last Wednesday.  As you'll recall, I was stitching it on the perforated paper included in the kit.  Perforated paper is pretty tough stuff.  Usually.  

While stitching on it and with it in my hand, I got up from my stitching chair to go find my ringing cell phone.  In my haste, I dropped the paper.  While still moving, I grabbed the edge of the paper to pick it up off the floor.  Unfortunately, I lost my balance a bit and my foot landed on the side of the paper I was not grabbing just as I pulled.  The paper ripped completely in two, right through all my stitching.  DOH!  

Oh well.  I really wasn't liking stitching on the perforated paper, mainly because of its size; I was having difficulty reaching the middle of the paper easily when stitching.  I would have kept on working on it because I like the design; I just wasn't liking the paper so much.  I still want to stitch this, but I think I'll look for some dark blue hand-dyed FABRIC to stitch it on when I do.

So I decided to stitch up one of the Halloween ornaments from the recent issue of Just Cross Stitch instead of mourning the demise of "Moonlit Kitties."  I should finish it tonight and I'll post a picture tomorrow.

DH worked hard this weekend and has the kitchen nearly ready for me to start painting.  He just has a few places on the tape and bedding to smooth and touch up, perfectionist that he is.  Emma supervised.

 

He replaced the old trim around the outside of the new window for now.  You may have wondered what kind of siding we seem to have.  As our house is an old hunting cabin that was built in stages with repurposed materials, the siding is roofing shingles - "poor man's siding."  As we renovate, we'll eventually replace all those green shingles with Hardi-plank siding and yellow paint.  The bottom picture shows what it will look like.  This is the newest part of the house tied into the old part.  Yeah, that old window on the left looks like it is crammed up against the new part of the house.  It will be replaced at some point with a new and smaller window and it won't look so jammed then.

LoneStar

Our kitchen progress

DH worked like a dog this weekend.  Actually, I think he worked harder than a dog as our dog rarely works; she naps a lot.  DH would have gotten all of his "to do" list done if he hadn't have to help the satellite installation guy (but I'm glad he did).
- replace the kitchen window with a new more energy efficient one.
- rewire all the plugs under the kitchen cabinets so we can plug in appliances.
- insulate the walls with fiberglass batting.
- install new sheetrock where it was torn out.  He only got this 2/3's done.
- tape and bed the new sheetrock.  He can't do this until all the sheetrock is hung.

And you would not believe how much cooler our house is with the kitchen insulated and mostly sheetrocked!  Maybe now I won't spend my afternoons and evenings sweating.  Here's a picture of where we are:

I haven't stitched all weekend.  But I will this evening and I'll post a picture of progress later this week.  Emma says, "Hi!"

LoneStar 

Windows and speed

DH took out the old kitchen window and replaced it with the new one.  He had to reframe it and then foam it into place.  It took him most of the day because he was interrupted.  More on that in a moment.

Old window from the outside.

Old window gone!

New window set and foamed in place.

New window from the inside.

We live out in the boonies, out where you can't get a fast internet connection.  No DSL, no broadband, and until recently, no satellite service.  Well, there is a satellite service, but it wasn't taking on new customers.  

I originally had landline service out here, but then switched to an AT&T air card.  It was marginally faster than the landline, even though we have an AT&T cell tower less than 1000 feet from our house.  AT&T upgraded the tower from 1G to 2G service in March and the internet connection speed got even slower and I never had a full antenna showing on the air card window.  Despite repeated calls to AT&T, the problem was never fixed.  AT&T kept saying "our computer shows the tower is functioning properly."  They said the problem must be with our air card.  Then why are we having the same connection problems with our Kindle, eh?  We are not fond of AT&T.

DH kept calling around and e-mailing providers, hoping that a provider had upgraded and could serve our area.  He lucked out a couple of weeks ago.   The provider that wasn't accepting new customers started accepting them again.  So we signed up and the installer was out yesterday morning to get us hooked up.  DH had to stop and climb around in the attic with the installer to help him find the right wall to run the cable down.  

But we are now hooked up and running.  While I'm not connected at a blazing speed, I can at least get a page with lots of pictures to download in less than a minute.  With the air card, I could start a picture-laden page loading and then go off and wash a sink full of dishes, fold a load of laundry, and cross stitch for half an hour before the page finished loading, if it finished at all.  I'm a happy "surfer."

LoneStar