they came, they sawed/hammered/glued/sanded and they went...and if we're really lucky, someday they'll come back.
those of you that have been following the progress of us 'tidying' up the house for maximum resale will know that this weekend was the (hopefully) last big push. BIL and SIL (Brother in law and sister in law) willingly volunteered to help us do this, probabley cos they knew we would kill ourselves or each other if we attempted it alone. M conveniently arranged to be a godfather to Angie two years ago in preparation for missing out the start of the demolition (one of the things I love about him is he is so well organized like that!) and had to go to her birthday. I didn't want to pass on my germs so couldn't go.
BIL, SIL and MWBTD (Morgan - worlds best trained dog) made the journey and the massacre commenced. We started out so optimistically, and pretty much everything that could go wrong did go wrong (you had to laugh or you cried). Should have realized when I was heading to Home Depot to pick up a second piece of bench top 1 hour into the project, and really should have known when I came back to find that the garbage disposal didn't come out of the sink. so on the up side i got the opportunity to kick the old one several times under the guise of trying to get it out of the sink...that'll teach it not to eat the garbage.
So after the realization that the walls were not straight (corner piece has to be angle cut), the old bench tops were glued down with some sort of industrial strength gunk that had hardened to concrete over time and there was barely enough room under the bench to fix the new sink...several medicinal beers, a lot of US/Kiwi ingenuity and way more glue than we probabley needed, the Home Depots finest(read only ones you can buy and take home) counter tops, double sink and garbage disposal are in and working...and looking pretty smashing if I may say so myself. They're a nice dark green fleck, which looks good with the oak cabinets. Pictures will be up on the web eventually.
and then we started on the master bath...should be easy after the kitchen right....nope...not a hope.
The old one came out with any bits of wall attached and we measured and cut the new one...popped it on the cabinets to realize that the cabinet was too small underneath and therefore the bench hangover in a most disconcerting way...several mini tantrums and name calling episodes later (and it was not me that measured it in the first place) we were nailing chunks of wood together to push the cabinet out from the wall. Everything else seemed to go smoothly after that...though I still have several tidy up jobs left to do, including putting a new side to the cabinet on.
Things we have learned from this weekend:
Measure 72 times...cut once or twice...if you're lucky
When you''re connecting the plumbing and testing if it works...don't point the tap to the sink with the big hole where you plan to put the new garbage disposal
Never clean under the sink hole you've just cut, sawdust absorbs water quite well
If in doubt...buy more glue
Ignore any manufacturer instructions when installing a sink and just go with what works...put the sink in then glue the bench-top down.
Hope that potential buyers never read this blog
'She'll be right mate' helps in most situations
So a really big thanks to SIL, BIL and MWBTD for all your help...and we promise that the next time we invite you down it will just be for dinner!
February 25, 2005
February 18, 2005
Doors, floors and foreign shores.
Finally getting around to getting the lovingly painted (4 coats!) interior doors back on. I've checked the DIY manual and the FIL but despite hanging them from the top first I still can't manage to get the middle and lower hinges to line up...so the new method is do the top one then unscrew the bottom two, put the hinge pins on and screw them back on the door. Seems to work except the bathroom door now sticks out at the top and won't close.
At this point I gave up and went to watch the start of survivor...cracking start too. Still, not quite the same if I can't ring mands and talk to her about it.
and as for the doors...oh well, if B&S (handypersons extrodinaire) can't figure out why when they come down this weekend then I'm calling Jack, Carrons dad who is like god of fixing things, and should probley have a website called www.bestnzdadatfixingthings.com
I'm going to do the other 3 tonight (M does not seem to be particularly inspired to help at the moment - though to give him his due, we're both addicted to CSI, and should be able to commit the perfect crime should we ever want to) so hopefully if they shut ok, then it must just be something about that door.
and the other thing we did yesterday was start the great house hunt. Never mind being green with envy about getting an email from D&R about moving into their new built house, we're just starting to look. What an eye opener. Several years of watching 'House doctor' in the UK lead me to believe that everyone would realize that you should at least vacuum your carpet if you are going to show your house...not to mention getting smelly pets out. But not these two. I know you need to look outside of the decor etc and look at the bones of the house, but still, cat pee in the basement and a master bedroom furnished like a dusty wild west saloon (complete with swinging doors on the wardrobe) can be a little distracting.
Neither house is what we want, though I'm not sure we exactly know what that is either, but we can agree that next to big road and needing lots more construction than pushing a few walls out are probably not the way to go.
Still it's given us(well me at least - the boss just wants it all to be over like a bad dream) a bit more inspiration to get cracking so we can put ours on the market...though I'm wondering what people will say about it (probably that we are boringly tidy and have some strange pictures)
and the foreign shores bit...my blister(sister) is officially booked (it was our chrissy present to her thanks to the vast amount of miles we accumulated last year) and will be in the US on the 24th of July...she drives me nuts and it's probably better if we never live together again in our lives, but I love her to bits and miss her...besides, think of the savings on telephone bills.
toodlepip til next time
At this point I gave up and went to watch the start of survivor...cracking start too. Still, not quite the same if I can't ring mands and talk to her about it.
and as for the doors...oh well, if B&S (handypersons extrodinaire) can't figure out why when they come down this weekend then I'm calling Jack, Carrons dad who is like god of fixing things, and should probley have a website called www.bestnzdadatfixingthings.com
I'm going to do the other 3 tonight (M does not seem to be particularly inspired to help at the moment - though to give him his due, we're both addicted to CSI, and should be able to commit the perfect crime should we ever want to) so hopefully if they shut ok, then it must just be something about that door.
and the other thing we did yesterday was start the great house hunt. Never mind being green with envy about getting an email from D&R about moving into their new built house, we're just starting to look. What an eye opener. Several years of watching 'House doctor' in the UK lead me to believe that everyone would realize that you should at least vacuum your carpet if you are going to show your house...not to mention getting smelly pets out. But not these two. I know you need to look outside of the decor etc and look at the bones of the house, but still, cat pee in the basement and a master bedroom furnished like a dusty wild west saloon (complete with swinging doors on the wardrobe) can be a little distracting.
Neither house is what we want, though I'm not sure we exactly know what that is either, but we can agree that next to big road and needing lots more construction than pushing a few walls out are probably not the way to go.
Still it's given us(well me at least - the boss just wants it all to be over like a bad dream) a bit more inspiration to get cracking so we can put ours on the market...though I'm wondering what people will say about it (probably that we are boringly tidy and have some strange pictures)
and the foreign shores bit...my blister(sister) is officially booked (it was our chrissy present to her thanks to the vast amount of miles we accumulated last year) and will be in the US on the 24th of July...she drives me nuts and it's probably better if we never live together again in our lives, but I love her to bits and miss her...besides, think of the savings on telephone bills.
toodlepip til next time
February 17, 2005
Cute shoes or snow shoes
Every workday morning I have a dilemma, cute shoes or snow shoes? For some reason when working out the workday clothes I've always started bottom up and I now have a little 'Chicago' routine to get me through the daily decison making.
I start my asking M how cold it is outside as the temperature thingy is on his side of the bed. This usually determine how woolly the trousers have to be and how thick the sweater is on top...then I look outside. If it's raining (not very often) or the snow is melting (even less) then nothing made of fabric or suede will touch my feeties that day. If the snow is deep or the path is icy, then anything which will cause me to fall on my butt in an embarrassing manner (is there any other sort?) is also out.
At the moment this leaves me with a selection of about 5 pairs of boots/shoes, one red, one brown and the others are of course black (Can you tell I've have been living in the UK for the last 5 years?). So once again I reach for the 'snow shoes' and all my cute little shoes in their little cardboard coffins stare reproachfully back.
If the weather doesn't clear up by tomorrow, I'm off snow shoe shopping on Friday night!
I start my asking M how cold it is outside as the temperature thingy is on his side of the bed. This usually determine how woolly the trousers have to be and how thick the sweater is on top...then I look outside. If it's raining (not very often) or the snow is melting (even less) then nothing made of fabric or suede will touch my feeties that day. If the snow is deep or the path is icy, then anything which will cause me to fall on my butt in an embarrassing manner (is there any other sort?) is also out.
At the moment this leaves me with a selection of about 5 pairs of boots/shoes, one red, one brown and the others are of course black (Can you tell I've have been living in the UK for the last 5 years?). So once again I reach for the 'snow shoes' and all my cute little shoes in their little cardboard coffins stare reproachfully back.
If the weather doesn't clear up by tomorrow, I'm off snow shoe shopping on Friday night!
February 15, 2005
Happy valentines day
Today feels like England, it's raining and grey (but not cold - hooray) and the palaver and hoo-haa of valentines day is finally over. When i was single i always thought that v-day would be much better as a couple. Now it's nice to share gifts (anytime is a good time for gifts in my book) and make a special meal, but the red hearts and must be with someone you love still annoys me a lot. In a way it's somewhat better in the states as it encompasses everyone you share joy with in your life (kids/secretary/useful service people) and not just your main bonk...well lets hope not!
I think I subscribe to the Tinholt theory that P&K came up with...if you buy flowers for your sweetie at least once a month to tell them how special they are, then you can eschrew the ridiculous overpriced stuff on v-day, knowing they already know you love them. Of course we always give him a hard time for being tight due to his Dutch ancestry....but that's another story.
Anyways...went to Florida to hang with the MIL and FIL last weekend. The locals all complained cos it got down to a cool 14 degree's on Saturday...but still felt pretty warm to me, and by the time it was 25 on Sunday we were lying by the pool in our togs blinding the locals with body parts that had not seen daylight since Malaysia
Florida is a very good place for license spotting, since it is packed full of 'snowbirds' (retired people who've done their time in cold states). We saw plates from Ontario, New York and just about every cold place in between those states and Florida...we may have easily been the youngest people in town as well.
MIL and FIL have a nice little condo overlooking a lake and it was good to spend time with them. Went to a craft fair and bought some guava jelly (closest I'm going to get to feijoa's for a while) and swamp cabbage salsa...remember when you were growing up and you learnt that you could cook and eat the heart of the cabbage tree...that's swamp cabbage in Florida. It did remind me a lot of the BOP, cold crisp mornings and warm days...not to mention large groves of oranges (sorta pre-kiwifruit BOP actually). MIL wanted to go to a grove to pick oranges and take a picture of us next to an orange tree(strange but true)...had flashbacks to living in kati and when the owner figured this out I got to spend the next 15 minutes regurgitating all I knew about kiwifruit production as he wants to have a go growing them. Who would have thought all those seasons of picking/packing/pruning/pollinating would come handy some day on the other side of the world. By the time we got to T-bar vs Pergola everyone's else eyes were glazing over so we headed of with some very tasty oranges and the knowledge that I might have planted the seeds of the next kiwifruit market....Oops.
Didn't do much else cept eat lots of fresh fish and lolling around reading and catching up...then managed to get an earlier plane home to a very sodden Chicago.
Off to sit through 2 hours of someone's presentation of a test plan...might need some coffee.
I think I subscribe to the Tinholt theory that P&K came up with...if you buy flowers for your sweetie at least once a month to tell them how special they are, then you can eschrew the ridiculous overpriced stuff on v-day, knowing they already know you love them. Of course we always give him a hard time for being tight due to his Dutch ancestry....but that's another story.
Anyways...went to Florida to hang with the MIL and FIL last weekend. The locals all complained cos it got down to a cool 14 degree's on Saturday...but still felt pretty warm to me, and by the time it was 25 on Sunday we were lying by the pool in our togs blinding the locals with body parts that had not seen daylight since Malaysia
Florida is a very good place for license spotting, since it is packed full of 'snowbirds' (retired people who've done their time in cold states). We saw plates from Ontario, New York and just about every cold place in between those states and Florida...we may have easily been the youngest people in town as well.
MIL and FIL have a nice little condo overlooking a lake and it was good to spend time with them. Went to a craft fair and bought some guava jelly (closest I'm going to get to feijoa's for a while) and swamp cabbage salsa...remember when you were growing up and you learnt that you could cook and eat the heart of the cabbage tree...that's swamp cabbage in Florida. It did remind me a lot of the BOP, cold crisp mornings and warm days...not to mention large groves of oranges (sorta pre-kiwifruit BOP actually). MIL wanted to go to a grove to pick oranges and take a picture of us next to an orange tree(strange but true)...had flashbacks to living in kati and when the owner figured this out I got to spend the next 15 minutes regurgitating all I knew about kiwifruit production as he wants to have a go growing them. Who would have thought all those seasons of picking/packing/pruning/pollinating would come handy some day on the other side of the world. By the time we got to T-bar vs Pergola everyone's else eyes were glazing over so we headed of with some very tasty oranges and the knowledge that I might have planted the seeds of the next kiwifruit market....Oops.
Didn't do much else cept eat lots of fresh fish and lolling around reading and catching up...then managed to get an earlier plane home to a very sodden Chicago.
Off to sit through 2 hours of someone's presentation of a test plan...might need some coffee.
February 08, 2005
Back to blog
Well I've not been bloggin for a while, busy with work and diy is not much of an excuse so if you are finally checking back in sorry mate - got a bit distracted. My goal is to try at least 3 times a week, just to keep my hand in. No idea what I'll talk about cos I'm getting worried with my obsession with the weather (by the way - the snow is almost gone but we're due for a little flurry - just to keep us on our toes) but I continue to go back to and enjoy http://elisson1.blogspot.com/ on a daily basis...so he can be my inspiration...and he's given me a great gumbo recipe I'm dying to try out.
It's fat Tuesday here today (Mardi Gras) before ash Wednesday and lent so I think we might be justified in having a slap up dinner tonight...okdokey, back to work and see you all later.
It's fat Tuesday here today (Mardi Gras) before ash Wednesday and lent so I think we might be justified in having a slap up dinner tonight...okdokey, back to work and see you all later.
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