It's been a while, huh? And I think I know the problem - I write a heck of a lot better when there's something to (as my mom would say) mitch and boan about. Well now there is! Erik and I just got done (as in, just now. At 10:45PM on a Thursday) ripping out $700 worth of sopping wet, year-old carpet. Thanks, Ma Nature. While it's super sweet of you to try and replenish our water table after a scorchingly dry summer, maybe dropping 20" of rain on us in a matter of days wasn't the best game plan.

So, we're back to the drawing board in the basement! Wonder how much it would cost to install a sump pump...

finally.

We have a new kitchen! (Mostly.)

All it took was 5 days, 7 trips to Lowes, 4 trips to Home Depot, 3 visits to IKEA, and an undisclosed amount of money. (Seriously, I refuse to even add it up. It's disgustingly high.)

Though we're not quite done yet -- the dishwasher (that I installed and wired all by myself!) is not yet hooked up to the water line (but in the meantime it's working great as a space-saving dishrack), the counter is not yet anchored to the cabinet bases, we have about 40 grouted tiles to remove, backsplash panels to install, painting/caulking/waterproofing, etc. -- we have water and electricity and counter space again, and for that we are insanely thankful.

Here's a quick recap of our journey (without the shopping trips, because I can't even remember all of them):

Friday AM: Tear out single cabinet and counter with ease. Feel good about this project! Empty cabinets and drawers, find them temporary shelter in dining room.

Friday PM: Try to turn off water at sink. Pipes still leak, must turn off water to the whole house to avoid flooding. Tear out long bank of cabinets and counter. Discover rotting tiles and subfloor but decide there's nothing we can do about it - continue with install. Place new cabinets - they fit! Break two cabinet legs. Superglue legs. Turn living room into woodshop, use coffee tables as sawhorses. Cut $189 solid oak counter to size with reciprocating saw. It's a mess. Sleep to avoid killing each other.

Saturday AM: Redo cut with new jigsaw, it looks better. Pre-wire and place dishwasher. Cut hole in counter for sink.

Saturday PM: Go to Brian and Laura's party to blow off some steam.

Sunday AM: Cut hole in sink for faucet. Faucet is wrong size, try to expand cut to accommodate faucet, fail and ruin $105 sink. (Somehow) convince IKEA to exchange ruined sink. Return big faucet (and inadvertently leave integral plumbing connection in faucet box). Buy new smaller faucet.

Sunday PM: Install faucet in sink and sink in counter. Cut and install side panel for dishwasher. Discover (too late to buy a new one) that we threw out neck to hook up old disposal.

Monday AM: Buy new disposal and backsplash tiles (since I decided it would be really easy to redo. HA!). Try to cut power to disposal outlet.* End up having to switch off every breaker in the house. Wire and attempt to install... but main waste pipe comes out too far for disposal to hang. Clean majority of debris and sawdust out of living room and office.

Monday PM: Convince Erik to take off work early on Tuesday because I can no longer handle only working during Chase's naps.

Tuesday AM: Pry off one single tile in 15 minutes. Rethink new backsplash.

Tuesday PM: Buy metal sawblade, cut 3" off main waste pipe, hang disposal, connect water supply hoses, turn on house water and keep our fingers crossed...

* After turning off the breaker labeled "disposal" and finding that the old disposal still had power, I tried turning off a few more labeled "kitshen," "ding room," and "dishwasher." Disposal still worked. Cut off "freezer" and "bedrooms." Still worked. Cut "out porch light" and the basement lights went off, but the disposal still ran. Grabbed a flashlight and finally turned off everything, which did the trick. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why a licensed electrician (not the buddy of the guy who mishung drywall) is the only person who should install a breaker box. Needless to say, I am not looking forward to the amount of rewiring we'll have to do to get this place up to code.

So blah blah blah, here are pictures...

our new kitchen, in pieces.

the single cabinet (so dirty because it was the stand mixer and coffee pot home, and who wants to clean a counter that's going straight to the trash?).

same place, new cabinet base.

and with new backsplash, countertop, and cabinet!

the long (ummm, yeah this is "long" for our kitchen) bank of old counters.

(don't worry, we kept NOTHING under the sink.)

with new cabinets and dishwasher in place.

and finally, with new counter, sink, dishwasher, cabinets, disposal and faucet! but don't get too excited, the backsplash panels are just resting on the still-tiled wall... that's a job for another day.

kitchen nightmares

Well, no April post - there went my resolution. (I haven't been drinking any tea, either.) I wish I could say that I simply didn't have time for a post, what with all the amazing things we've been doing to the house, but the truth is much more lazy: My days have been filled with a lot of daydreamy roams around Home Depot and Lowes, maneuvering around half-built kitchen cabinets, and avoidant napping. That isn't to say that we haven't accomplished anything - for example, we did put the finishing touches on Chase's playroom and activity wall (pictures to come in a devoted post).

And I've been spending an insane amount of time making decorations (mainly fabric pennants) for his birthday party decorations:

Other than that, not too much has been happening. But that all changes now. Kitchen Weekend is upon us.

We finally bought our cabinets, countertop, and sink over Erik's spring break, with grand plans to install them that week. That was about a month ago. We just kinda slept a lot that week. And now we're down to the wire - just two Saturdays and Sundays stand between us and the 27th, when Pop Pop and Kay Kay's visit coincides with Chase's (at-home) birthday party. Hence, it's Kitchen Weekend. (Potentially followed by Disaster Recovery Week when our dishwasher floods, the floor caves in, and we cut our losses and set up camp in the backyard until we win the lottery.)

To get us started, I tore out a cabinet this morning and realized why homeowners generally prefer to pay people to do these sorts of things for them: no one should see behind their kitchen counters. Amid the six-decade-old debris: two forgotten spoons; one yellowed roasting pan instruction booklet; four art deco plastic kitchen tiles; 3.2 million cockroach shells. And that's where I cook, folks!

Wish us luck.

rock bottom

Our basement floor has been a long-standing Issue (yes, with a capital "i"). Just before Chase was born, we were finally able to carpet half of it after installing a moisture barrier - so it's carpeted, but every once in a while it sounds as though you're walking on a tarp... because you are. Whatever, better than a moldy rug, right?

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you consider the two recent flooding events) we never addressed the other half of the basement, mainly because it had been relegated to a disorganized "storage" area where we kept all of our old crap that we didn't feel like sorting, since sorting it would make us realize how old and crappy it really was, forcing us to part with such treasured belongings as Battlefield Earth on VHS and issues of Seventeen magazine featuring the cast of My So-Called Life. (I'm not making this up. When I was 13, that was total scrapbook material.) But I digress... That whole side of the basement was nothing more than a corridor from the stairs to the washing machine.

our trash heap (sadly, this was taken after a major re-org. yes, it used to be much worse.)

After Chase started crawling, however, this room became the key to my sanity. He needed somewhere wide open to play in, and nothing in our quartered Cape Cod quite fit the bill. In fact, the only room in our house larger than 12x12 was our "remodeled" basement family room - where we'd torn down the wall separating two illegal bedrooms; the same space we'd had carpeted - which we'd inadvertently re-devided into an adult TV spot/Chase play area. It was impossible to watch TV while he was playing (we're trying to save his little synapses from TMZ for a few more months), and we certainly couldn't leave him there for any amount of time, since he'd automatically go for the power cords and/or Wii-motes. So, in a desperation-fueled mania, I "cleaned" (read: moved piles in) the junk room and tore up the tiles. And the space actually started feeling... well, perhaps not livable, but at least not disgusting.

Then we were stuck with the exact same conundrum we'd faced with the other side: What on earth to do with the potentially-sweaty concrete subfloor? (Other questions included: How the f**k do you get up tiling glue without horrible chemicals? and: What's the worst that could happen if I just dumped a bucket of primer on the floor?) Oh, and to make things more interesting, my goal was to finish the project before my cousin and her family came to visit on April 1. So I went with the primer idea. Erik was dubious. Honestly, even I was dubious. But it was a lot of fun, and you know what? It worked. (I forgot to take a picture, but it just looks like a white concrete floor now, and the primer covered up all the glue and years of neglect/water damage really well.)

The only problem was, it felt like the bottom of a really crappy pool. Certainly not what you want underneath your feet when you're trying to get snuggly and watch a movie. Chase even refused to crawl on it. So we got a rug!

And I promptly shoved it through a wall! Whoops. (NOTE: Don't let a 5x8 area rug slide down the stairs. It seems easier at the time, but it won't seem like such a good idea when you're spending an entire afternoon plastering the wall you ruined.) Moving on...

Overall, we're happy with our new space. The walls still need some work (no, not just the hole... we also need to paint everything and find a way to cover the circuit box), we still need to mount the TV, and I'm experimenting with the spacing (I've never had an area rug before, so I have no idea how to position it), but it feels new - heck, in our eyes we just added some serious square footage to our house. And Chase is thrilled to have the largest room in our house all to himself. (That's another project - post coming soon.)

Now all we have to worry about is what's behind that curtain. I'll give you a hint - it involves John Travolta, Claire Danes, and Jared Leto.

There have been some not-so-awesome things happening in our house lately. You know, to add to the list of not-so-awesome things that have been happening since we bought this place. (Dear Little House: We are appreciative of all that you do for us, but 60 years just isn't treating you well. Please don't take this post personally and start getting even worse.)

First, the monsoon season left us with a flooded basement. I'm exaggerating a bit: only half of the basement flooded. And there was less than an inch of standing water, but still. Luckily (?) our basement is really uneven and half of it is still covered in musty vinyl tiles (something we hope to take care of this weekend), so the high ground (carpeted side) was saved.

Second, after weeks of messing with the wiring, we're pretty sure that the only usable telephone jack is in the nursery. And since we're still stuck in the dark ages what with our DSL connection and all, that means that the modem and phone have to remain plugged in there. This brings our total super-baby-safe square footage down to exactly ... 0. Before Chase could crawl, that didn't seem to matter. Now it does. A lot.

Third, and most annoying/expensive/not-so-awesome: our washing machine broke down last night. And it didn't break in between loads or anything. No, it broke right in the middle of the first diaper rinse cycle. We bought the machine new last January (Whirlpool Duet, in case you're in the market for appliances to avoid), installed it in April, and have been using it 2-3 times a week since, mostly just for the diapers. (We're not really big laundry people.) Anyways, it reeked of burning plastic and wouldn't do anything, so I hauled the semi-poopy cloth upstairs to the tub (which, of course, we'd just scrubbed out to start using for Chase's baths) and stomped around in human waste while Erik tried to diagnose the problem.

[Side note: please realize I'm exaggerating again. Cloth diapers get a bum rap for being disgusting, and I'm taking full advantage of that for entertainment purposes. The boring truth is that I was basically just rinsing pee out of cotton.]

So anyways, where were we? Ah yes, cursing our washing machine. We checked in with Whirlpool - we were officially 57 days out of warranty, and the soonest they could be here was Tuesday for $129 plus parts. So we shopped around: Best Buy's Geek Squad would be $100 for the first visit, parts, and $35/15 minutes of install labor; Sears was even more; and our nice local guy doesn't do washers. Assuming it was the motor, we'd be out anywhere from $250-$350. To fix a machine that might crap out again in 11 months. Long story short, we decided we'd be better off just buying a new, cheap top-loader. But first, I typed out a bitter note to Whirlpool, mostly to get it off my chest.

Well this morning I got a call, bright and early, from their Customer Service Department. The company is "very stringent about their warranty periods, probably because of the recession" but my lady had totally "talked to her boss and convinced him to grant a 6-month warranty extension!" Well hooray! "Beginning after this repair." Umm... so they, like, totally stand behind their product not to break again for the next six months, once we have it serviced back to like-new condition? In nicer words, I told her to shove it. She put me on hold. "Okay, great news," she whispered conspiratorially, "we'll cover the cost of the part or parts. You're really lucky, we don't do this for everyone." Right, you only do it for people who expect more than a year's worth of work out of the appliance they dropped half a grand on. Isn't it nice to know that we've become so complacent?

And the moral of the story is: Ask, and ye shall probably get what you pretty much deserved in the first place.

How is it already the end of February? I had all these grand plans to get a blog post up last week and then with another one today, but now that Chase is crawling and hates being confined to his exersaucer or my lap, the only time I have to write is during his morning nap. And really, I'd much rather take that 45-60 minutes to catch up on my sleep, as well. (In defense of my apparent laziness: Chase is still waking up 1-2 times/night, and my perpetual exhaustion isn't good for anyone in this household.) So we'll make the most out of this single post.

1) First and most important (drum roll puh-lease): We have finally finished the living room wall! F-i-n-a-l-l-y.

You may recall that it all began like this:

Not only was the paint ugly (Seriously, pink and yellow? Did an 8-year-old girl pick the colors?), it was bubbling out from the wall, so we started to peel it:

But that task was more than my fingernails could handle, so mom and dad were kind enough to strip it for us while we were in Florida (no, not at Christmas) ... last summer. When we got home, I primed half of it. So it looked like this for a while. A loooong while:

Eventually I mustered up the energy to prime (because, dear previous owners, that is what you need to do to wood paneling so that the latex doesn't peel straight off. Idiots.):

Two coats of primer and two more coats of paint later, and we've got:

Yay! We even installed the coat rack! So we don't have to keep our jackets in the same closet as the litter box!!

2) Erik installed the sink/cabinet in the upstairs bathroom! So now we're down to just one huge, unopened box in the office/guest room: the dishwasher. Because every good office needs clean dishes. Anyways, let's focus on the positive: the bathroom looks about 10 times better without the old pedestal sink. Here's before, from when we first moved in:

During the reno, we unearthed some 50s-chic turquoise tiles (just in case you weren't disgusted enough by the peach paint):

And after (Please ignore the mess reflected in the mirror. That's obviously some sort of parallel universe, not my pristine bathroom.):

3) We did a little baby-proofing! First, I installed a baby gate at the top of the stairs (no pic because it's super-boring). Second, I (again, finally) organized the bookshelves in our living room and made the kid-level shelves kid-friendly. I'm very happy with the results, and with the organization - alphabetical by subject, natch:

There's a lot more to share -mostly back-log projects that I never posted because, well, we'd get about 85% done and then decide that was good enough- but Chase is up, so they'll have to wait.

I know what you're thinking: "Another blog post, so soon?! Amy, surely nothing could have happened in the past six months." Believe it or not, nothing really has. Housework has taken a back seat to parenthood, and parenthood has effectively taken up every spare second of our lives. Ugh, why didn't anyone tell us that having a kid would be such hard work? But seriously, Chase is the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to us, even though (or perhaps because) raising him keeps us from thinking about/acting on all of the home improvement projects that loom ahead.

Unfortunately, the longer we wait to finish up our renovations, the less time we'll have to enjoy them. To that end, one of my 2011 resolutions was to complete at least one house project each month. This ties in nicely with my goal to post here at least once per month as well. Finally, blogging goes well with my third big change: drinking more tea. So here I am, on January 31 (I'm nothing if not a procrastinator), sitting in front of the computer with a cup of Earl Grey to my right and a can of paint to my left. (The brushes are where they've been since I primed the walls two months ago: soaking in the guest tub.)

Since Chase will only be napping for another hour or so and I won't likely be able to finish painting and update this post with house-related pictures by then, here's a quick pictorial play-by-play of what we've been up to since last August. Enjoy!

eating...

sleeping...

(you were expecting a pooping picture, weren't you?!)

torturing our son with the bear costume...

sightseeing...

and (this one applies to Chase only:) just generally being cute.