Our Olde House – November 2023
After five months of repairing the house, I believe that we are no longer overwhelmed by the tasks before us. Our mental outlook improved significantly once all demolition was completed and building a new kitchen was begun. Today, I think we are merely whelmed, and the light at the end of the tunnel is visible and growing brighter every day; this light seems to be project completion, and not another train coming at us.
The new kitchen has a beaded pine ceiling and wall, stained poplar cabinets and poplar trim around the windows, new countertops, a tile backsplash and new wood flooring. The sunroom also has a beaded pine ceiling and wall, and new flooring. They installed pulls for the cabinets and drawers, and we ordered thirty-two yoga mats to use to line the cabinets and drawers; these work great since they are soft, do not move and can be washed if necessary. The kitchen sink/faucet/disposal/dishwasher are being installed now, so all that is left to do is install all of the electrical switches and outlets. They completed the foundation repair under the middle bedroom so that floor is back to being level.
My non-kitchen related tasks included painting a spot on the front porch wall that I skipped because it is above the steps and not easily reached, and I could not remember how the heck I painted it. I still cannot remember, but I managed to paint it using my largest ladder with one leg in the carport and the other leg on the steps; this is a very clever ladder that worked really well for this.
I also completed painting the carport ceiling trim. The ceiling looks nice now that all of the edges have blue paint. I did not see any red wasps guarding the carport so I was able to paint in peace; I did see one small black wasp that ran into some wasp spray because I did not want to get stung while up on the ladder. The sod installed by the City in the parking strip has needed to be watered while our drought continued. It looked a little brown when they installed it and I was able to make it a little greener by hand watering it during the 90-degree heat. The moles from the backyard, and maybe from the entire neighborhood, have moved into the front lawn, so the entire lawn is now a roller coaster ride to walk across.
Halloween came with a three-day cold snap that apparently kept the kids away. We had only eight kids total, instead of the usual fifty or so. Lots of candy left over this year for the first time. Miss Sherry decorated the front yard with some orange lights and our two inflatable dragons; the little boys always love to see the dragons, so we have our pre-Halloween daytime guests too. Gotta cover some fragile outdoor plants on our porch to protect them from one or two days of freezing temperatures; they will come inside later but can stay outside for now.
Miss Sherry and I decided to celebrate our being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel by grilling some burgers. After the tree slightly hit the barbeque on the back deck, I put it down into the sideyard, and after pushing out a couple of small dents and replacing the starter battery it seemed as good as new back in June. But as luck would have it, as I opened the door now to turn on the propane tank and light the burners, a swarm of ants attacked my feet; of course the place I chose to park it was on top of an ant bed.
One can of ant spray later the threat was ended, and I decided that the barbeque needed to be back on the deck. Even after removing the propane tank, the barbeque seemed very heavy while lifting it up onto the deck, especially since there was no comfortable place to take hold of it. I managed to wrestle it to the top of the stairs and onto the deck so we could grill our burgers; the burgers were excellent with bleu cheese and well worth the effort.
We are waiting for another break in the chaos to have our black walnut tree removed and sod installed in the front yard where the azalea hedge once stood. The black walnut tree unfortunately needs to go before it falls down; it is dropping branches more frequently and when the oak tree fell it knocked off all of its branches that were over the deck. And lest we forget, the back deck needs some serious repair as soon as the kitchen is completed; always just one more thing.
