21 years and counting

Today is our 21st wedding anniversary.  I am the one that plans ahead.  I got him a card when I went to the grocery store last week, that I was sure he saw when he helped put up the groceries.  I've mentioned our anniversary several times in the last few weeks.  His phone has a reminder on it and he got that earlier this week. 

I gave him his gift and card this morning and got "OH NO!"...are  you KIDDING me?!  It's not like Easter where the date changes from year to year, it's the exact same date EVERY year. 

He dropped me off at work this morning and then about an hour or so later he shows up with flowers from Reasors, still in the plastic wrapper and with the price tag still on it - no vase - and a card.  Last of the big time spenders is what I've got here.  We won't even talk about how totally romantic that is...

I'd like to say he forgot because he has so much on his mind with the whole remodel thing but this is standard operating procedure for my dear hubby.  Him forgetting is why I gave him the EXACT same card until he caught on - after the 10th year.

Will he ever remember and plan ahead?  Probably  not.  Gotta love him anyway.

Ahhhhchooo!

Everywhere I go there is dust.  I feel like it's in my teeth there is so much of it.  The carpet gets vacuumed and as soon as someone walks into the kitchen and back you can't tell it's been vacuumed.  Doesn't matter how much the floors are swept, the dust just keeps coming.  I think I'm going to take a cleaning sabbatical until the tear out is done. Some of you will visit me in Vinita, right?

I give!

more demo

More demo was done this week....

a friend asked this week why we are taking the plaster out.  Here would be a good reason to get down to the studs...

we would've never known about this broken stud until it was too late...now dear hubby can fix it and all will be good.

  Also that old wiring has to go and removing all the plaster is the best way to accomplish that.

One of the positives of living in the house your husband grew up in is you know what has been done to the house during those years. A previous remodel included a bar into the back room (a.k.a. my office), another remodel took the bar out and closed the room back up.  I want a pocket door there but there's something about a load bearing wall, blah, blah, blah - at this point it all sounded like the teachers on Charlie Brown - what I did get from the conversation was that I won't get what I want...

the plaster pile (have I got you to say it five times fast yet?) is smaller in the house, some is now in the back of the truck on it's way to my sister-in-law's "free" dump and more is in the back yard...

One last thought.  We went to Lowe's and got some supplies...

where is he going to put it? 

SURE!  We'll put it in the garage....

oh that smell, can you smell that smell?

After church and pot luck dinner today my brother-in-law, Jack, sister-in-law, Martha and the best mother-in-law a person could have, came over to see the state of my kitchen.  While showing my mother and sister-in-law the new-to-me cabinets that are currently being stored in my office area, I kept smelling something that didn't seem quite right.  After they left I came back to my office and the smell kept on.  I quickly surmised that it wasn't one of my in-laws since they were no longer around and then it hit me...I asked my hubby if he'd checked the mouse traps lately....here's what my great hunter put in the trash.....

we don't need no stinkin dumpster

I'm not sure exactly what dear hubby is thinking.  We don't need a dumpster for the tear out.  REALLY?!  I want to get one of those dumpster bags from Home Depot.  He says we don't need it.  Wonder who will win this one? He says he can piece meal it out to the curb, which means he'll put a little in a contractor bag and put household trash on top.  Keep in mind that the trash people won't pick up more than 50 pounds at a time.  When is the last time you shoveled plaster?  It doesn't take long to get to 50 pounds.  How many extra bags a trash day can we put out there?  How long before the trash men catch on and leave a note telling us they don't haul off construction materials?  My guess is it won't take long.  Here is the plaster we have so far and the worst is yet to come (ceiling and north wall where the upper and lower cabinets were).

this pile is now bigger and seems like a waste of energy to get the plaster off the walls and move to the corner of the room only to move it once again to wherever dear hubby thinks he can get away with accomplishing the haul off.  I assume he hasn't had us haul it to the back yard with the rest of the plaster pile because he's realized that the dogs will soon have no place to hang.  Here's the outside pile:

The Boy  has been carefully taking the lathing out of the plaster piles (say that fast five times) because dear hubby thinks it'll be a good idea to burn it along with other wood that can't be re-claimed. 

this stuff makes a BIG flame REALLY fast...didn't I hear that there was a high fire danger?  Not sure burning is a grand idea right now...I did notice that my insurance upped my coverage this year, but do we really want another fire at this house?  So when exactly are we going to burn all of this, plus what hasn't been torn out yet, along with this

I know, we'll burn it after or during a good rain.  That would mean someone standing vigil on the burn for days, probably well into the dog days of summer.  Or, I know, here's the plan, we'll leave it for our neighbors to view until we have a tailgate party (hopefully for the TU/OSU game this year) and the guests can all stand around the Coleman Firepit and "throw another log on the fire"...that'll be a grand ole time and guarantee that people will return for future back yard events.

Now re-claiming wood I can get on board with and have pulled nails before.  I imagine I'll be pulling nails for awhile.

this is just part of the re-claim pile.

Here's the basic view my neighbors see right now

Someone please explain to my dear sweet hubby why we need a dumpster....

day three of work

Today was the third day of real work in the kitchen.  I JUST thought I was going to lay around and read a book at least one day of my spring break vacation.  Some day when the work is all done I can rest, right?  So here's what it looked like just as we got started...

behind that wall is a closet to the middle bedroom which will be relocated...(the closet not the bedroom)

there's the closet door leading to the bedroom, right now it's helping to keep the dust somewhat contained. The next picture is what I'm excited about right now.  See that baby crap greenish yellow wall?  Behind that is a brick chimney that was built into the house in 1925 and was the exhaust for the floor furnaces that used to be here.  Check it out...

my dear hubby will have to fill in a few bricks 'cause the house used to have a wood stove (or that's our best guess) and the pipe went into the chimney, but I think keeping this part will look cool.

next the wall between the dining room and kitchen will come out. First Johnny has to make sure the a/c unit won't fall through the ceiling before he takes out anymore studs.

Speaking of studs, a previous worker, from a previous remodel on the house left a present...

the upper cabinets are now all out too...

I think I need a nap.  I'm sure Johnny does.

snacks for bible study

I started attending a women's bible study class last week and figured since my kitchen was about to be in shambles (little did I know it would be that way sooner than I thought) that I better get the first week I could, and since I was on vacation this week what better time, right?  I made spinach salad, chicken salad, individual cheese cakes, banana nut bread, and chocolate mint cookies (which are good competition for Thin Mints). 

here's the spread...good thing I have a key to the church and was able to use their kitchen or I would have never pulled this off...I need to start remembering the state of my kitchen before I volunteer for anymore cooking projects.

Ta Da!

When we went to pick up the cabinets and appliances from my friend in OKC, the contractors at her house were using this dust barrier system that we thought was pretty darn cool.  So I looked online and Johnny looked in the garage and I found the REALLY big zippers (LOVE Amazon.com btw) and hubby found visqueen that had been purchased for another "bird" and never used.  Here is what we have...

you have to forgive my picture taking skills...the almost constant shaking I do makes it hard to take a pic unless I put the camera on "subject in motion" setting and I forget to do that - or I have to hold my breath, and even then it's not guaranteed that the picture will come out and there's the chance of passing out...anyhoo, this is my temporary kitchen in the dining room and the dust barrier.

Here's a close up of the big zipper...

when I walk from the old kitchen area into the temporary kitchen area I feel like I should say TA DA! so I do. 

cooking under construction

we aren't blessed with lots of money, therefore we can't eat out every night...even if we were rich, I'm sure we'd get sick of eating out darn near all the time.  I'm not the Pioneer Woman but I'm still going to give it a good ole college try.  I'm pretty sure I lived with less in college.  Anyway, here we go...tonight I'm going to attempt to make a pork chop casserole.  First I have to unearth my stove..let's hope that wood behind the stove doesn't catch on fire....and the food could have a bit of a plaster dust taste but what the heck, it's food, right?

Let the fun begin

It seems as though my Spring Break vacations generally end up as working vacations.  This year is no different.  My dear friend gave me her old kitchen and appliances (which by the way aren't old looking at all) and now my dear hubby, Johnny, has a new "bird".  Side note for those of you who don't know what I mean...for 21 years I've lived in some sort of construction and often hear "that's no big deal, I'll fix it later."  This comment is generally at the end of a project, and I've come to understand that it also means that the small stuff that may be no big deal to him and whatever it is will wait until he gets back to it because now he has another project in mind, and the current one is boring him.   He's seen another "bird" and is done with this one for now and will get back to it later...yea, right..the new bird will take him to another bird and so on, and so on...the birds never quit coming and the result is I've now got 21 years of "no big deals" piled up.  Okay, so now I'll get back to my original "bird" in this blog...the kitchen.  So now here I am on "vacation" or "staycation", and my kitchen is in the beginning faze of remodel.

Day one of tear out

 

day two....