The Hidden Treasures (and/or problems) of Rehabbing

See the cabinet to the left of the stove?  It's GONE.  

We found things when we pulled the cabinet out.  We found a spatula!

What appears to be a flattened penny:

And a perfectly preserved prayer card.

So, here's the problem, or problemzzz.

When our current cabinets were installed, they didn't install the hardwood flooring all the way to the wall.  So the floor isn't level.  Thanks geniuses!  

I mean, it's cool seeing the original hardwoods underneath our current flooring, but why did they do this?  What were they thinking?  As a temporary solution, we cut pieces of the old cabinets to fit and make the floor a *little* more level.  

There's also the problem of the window that used to be in the kitchen:

It's a bit of a mess, and will need to be re-sealed.  Also, it appears the current walls in the kitchen are plaster (our house was built in 1911, so this is not surprising), and we're not sure what to do about that. Do we knock down the plaster and replace the drywall?  Do we dry wall over the plaster?  

Also you'll see an outlet to the right of the old window.  It's too far for the new oven to plug in.  So that will have to be addressed as well.  Thank goodness my brother is an electrician.

Finally, the gas line is too tall for our new oven.  The main line will need to be turned off, and the current pipe replaced with a shorter one (as well as a new shut off and flex line put on).  Thankfully my dad know how to do this.  

Yesterday I had some time to kill so I worked on removing the tile from the backsplash:

Some of it came up very easily, and others were one-tiny-tile-at-a-time, hand-cramping sticklers.  I made a small dent.

I also poked around the soffit.  I've been very curious to see if they drywalled over the woodwork of the door to the upstairs, or the other way around.

Disappointingly, they chose to cut the wood to fit the soffit.  Dammit.

This can be fixed, we can have a piece cut to fit the part that's missing, and stain and secure it to the wall, but still.  It's a bummer.

But it's not ALL bad news, guys!  We made progress, which is good.  We identified problems, which is good.  We are devising solutions, which is good.  Aaaand, we bought another cabinet--this time the big pantry cabinet from Ikea, which will go right next to the stove.  Yay!  We only have one cabinet left to buy, the small one that will fit over the microwave.  We have just about all of our major purchases complete...although I should probably look into how much drywall costs...and figure out how to install it.

Garden Check-In

We are going into week 4 of our vegetable garden, and true to form, I have been neglecting to document it's progress.  Everyday I can see the progress of our plants.  I need to get better at documenting it!

What we planted:

Cucumber
Marion Tomatoes
Grape Tomatoes
Yellow Pear Tomatoes
Red Pepper
Yellow Pepper
Green Pepper
Zucchini
Sweet Basil

And from the seed:

Sweet Corn
Mammoth Sunflowers
Lettuce

As I noted in this post, we broke down the raised garden bed and expanded the area for planting this year.  We have more than doubled our garden space as a result.  My dad, who maintains his own summer garden every year, suggested we plant corn, and I said, really?  Can we do that?  And he said, absolutely!  Why not?  So we did!

Look at how our little seedlings are growing!  So well!

Baby corn stalks!

Baby sunflowers!

Baby lettuce!

And here's the rest of the garden, as of May 26th:

The corn is growing along the back fence; the sunflowers to the right, the lettuce up front.  Soon we'll need to put up the chicken wire, to keep the critters (and our dog) away, but for now, this will do.

Memorial Day Weekend, Volume 2

There's been more progress on the kitchen front!

On Monday we went to Sears and bought this microwave.  It was marked down from $249 to $174, and then we had $72 in rewards points from our oven purchase, so we only paid $112.  We saved $137 from the original price, y'all.  Can I get a high five?!

We went to a BBQ, then I spent the evening watching Jean-Claude Can Damme and Sly Stallone films while doing this:

I assembled the frames for the kitchen cabinets.  They were very simple.  Hopefully the rest of the assembly will go so smoothly!  

Tonight we are supposed to get a quote from Sears for countertops.  I expect we'll shop around a little bit.  We are having the countertops professionally cut and installed because it's the one thing that we feel we don't trust ourselves to do on our own.  I mean, I'm sure we could do it.  But there's more potential for error and we'd rather pay someone to get it right the first time rather than spend time and money to do it ourselves when there is a chance we might mess it up and we'd have to start all over again.  That would really suck. 

Memorial Day Weekend, Volume 1

I had a three day weekend and it was very, very productive!

I *finally* finished beautifying the front yard:

And some beautifying in the back yard:

(These perennials were all transferred from other spots around the yard last year.  They came back pretty strong this year, but there are still a few fledglings in the middle.)

 Two projects I would like to tackle this summer are landscaping in front of our deck and removing the rocks and planting grass alongside the deck.  There's a mess of landscaping rocks on the side of the deck and it's u-g-l-y and I want it to go away.  Here's a hot tip: don't use landscaping rocks.  If you ever want to get rid of them, you will have your work cut out for you.

But, other than those projects, which I don't see as urgent and can even wait until next year if needed, I am done with summer planting.  Yay!

Let's Garden

We spruced up our front yard over the weekend.   From this (imagine all the daffodils and tulips dead and sad looking):

To this:

Then lots of planting in pots for the front porch and back deck:

I used different flowers and accent plants than last year, so we'll see how they all turn out.  By the end of last summer, the plants were so full and beautiful.

Kitchen progress!

Good news.  We bought some cabinets!  We went to Ikea on Monday and bought 3 base cabinets and a new sink.  Yippee!  We only have two more cabinets left to buy: a wall cabinet for over the (yet to be purchased) microwave; and the large pantry cabinet.

Also remaining on the list:

Countertops (Sears is coming on Thursday to give us an estimate)
Backsplash
Knock down the soffit above the current wall cabinets
Open shelving for plates and glasses
Pendant light above sink
Replace current (beige) outlets and switches with new white ones

The list is deceptively short, but Ikea cabinets require building and then there's all the work of removing the old cabinets, dealing with any problems that reveal themselves as a result, installing the new cabinets, electrical/plumbing work...everything takes longer than you think it will.

Further down the line, we will get a few more base cabinets for a small island in the kitchen.  But that's more of a long-term goal.

Also, we removed our old countertop stove last night.  This is how it looked with the lid popped up:

Go ahead, take a closer look:

SO GROSS!  I have been very anxious to dispose of this thing.  I cleaned this stove A LOT.  For NAUGHT.  It has been a pointless exercise.

The worst part?  When we pulled the dang thing out, there was this:

A filthy ring of thick disgusting grease that has been festering for God knows how long.  But the WORST worst part?  When I cleaned that stuff away, and I was using a scraper and all-purpose cleaner, it smelled like POOP.  I kid you not.  It stunk like fecal matter.  And while I tried to focus on the task and not let the smell overwhelm me, I knew we were doing the right thing by rehabbing this kitchen.  Because before we moved into this house, this kitchen was not cared for, was not cleaned EVER, and dirt and grease and filth has a way of embedding itself, to the point where some things, like counter top stoves and whole kitchens for that matter, are beyond saving.

It's better to begin again, wipe the slate clean, and rebuild.

Goodbye, old stove!  I don't miss you one bit.*

*Within a few hours, the stove was gone from our curb, picked up by a junker.  I'm surprised even they would want it!

Let's Trench

Last summer I moved these plants from the front of our deck to in front of our shed.  The grass got very overgrown and the area needed to be cleaned up.  That's where trenching comes in!  I've watched the facilities people where I work use this to do it.  I like how it creates a clean line and separates landscaping from the lawn without having to use landscaping stones or other borders.

Before

After

I have a bad habit of not taking photos while I work; the grass was overgrown across the yard past our vegetable garden, so I kept going.

BUT, this year we decided to expand our garden, so I broke down the raised bed and turned the soil in the whole area; we used the pieces from the raised bed to create a new border and a cute little entrance for the newly expanded garden.

On Tuesday we are planting three different varieties of tomato, red, green and yellow peppers, cucumber, and we will plant seeds for corn, mammoth sunflowers and lettuce!

Currently Living in Our Front Yard

Coming soon: Red Tulips!

So, this happened.

I've been meaning to write about this:

Before:

After:

What happened, right?  Well, we bought a new oven, and then Ryan went out of town, and then my parents came over to hang out with me, and I asked my dad if we could take a look at the old oven and stove and what it would mean to remove them/install the new oven, and then my dad started poking around and before I knew it I was hauling our tools upstairs and then this happened:

I so didn't expect things to take this turn that I did not even change into my "project" clothes. 

It snowballed very quickly but it was a TON OF FUN.  AND, we have officially started rehabbing the kitchen!  Squee!  ALSO: knocking things down with a sledge hammer is really, really fun.

Removing the old cabinet that held the oven revealed old duct work underneath.

Weeeiiird.  So we took a piece of old cabinet and covered it up; the piece we used ran flush with the hardwood, so it fit perfectly!

Also, this was on the wall:

This must be original to our kitchen.  Very Swedish.  

So, hopefully soon there will be more to report!  My parents are coming over again this weekend and I hinted we have yet to remove the old countertop stove...so we'll see...