The Dilletante Proprietor: Painted Floors

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Craaazy week and a kitchen update!

First I have to thank Inga at Ingas Haven for an AWARD! She gave me the Liebster Blog award! :o)

Liebster means Sweet Heart in German...and this is the information I gleaned on how it came about...according to this kind lady....

"Some time (in the recent past), somewhere (rumor has it that it might be Germany), someone (I am guessing he/she was named Liebster) decided to do something nice for a whole lot of bloggers and started the Liebster Blog Award."

"The value behind this award is for us to get to know other bloggers who might not be well known, yet have a lot to share. And we see that. This is not about growing your list of followers (believe me, it won’t happen), but of building a community."

I love being part of the blogging community!

THANK YOU INGA!

This past week has been a wee bit nuts! In between trying to finish the kitchen, the living room and helping others get their gardens in place...as well as my own garden...spring has sprung intermittently in the UP...it is 60 degrees out one day....and snowing 7 inches the next day! I have also become....a NON SMOKER after 30 years....AND I have given up coffee...two pots a day for 20 some years...the first week was very hard for me...but I just could not tolerate the smell any more...it really bothered me...I have an uncanny sense of smell...even for being a long term smoker...and the odor is what finally made me quit...

I am still putting pieces together in the house but my efforts have been outside this past week...

The kitchen is far from done...as with everything in the recycle, re-purpose...re-use department...waiting for the right stuff to appear can take a while...but the floors...oooooh....I love them....what a difference they made...

I still have to caulk some in the living room and put another coat on it... I just couldn't take any more sanding, scraping, painting or caulking this last week...so it is on hold...

The kitchen, however...I am in love with...the floor is finished in there...as well as some of the other details...

As you all have probably been noticing...we have begun making countertops in the kitchen out of the pallets.. and the other two found table legs that match the sink skirt....I did not want traditional cabinets on the bottom...after having just the one for awhile...I noticed that it made my kitchen look smaller...so I really wanted open shelving...but with animals, having dishes and what not on shelves close to the floor was not happening...I was not prepared to clean dust and hair out of my dishes or food stuffs every time I wanted to use them... so we opted for one shelf...18 inches from the floor and....a drawer...I was originally thinking baskets but I needed something sturdier...I asked my Honey to make me a drawer to fit under there...on wheels with three compartments...I thought I would put root veggies in there since you shouldn't put them in the fridge and I was really tired of chasing them around in the pantry....oh...and it had to look like an old wood crate...;o)

I have a a couple of old galvanized garbage cans headed for the scrap yard... they have the most interesting galvanized D-ring handles on them....What do you think? I was sure they would be perfect for this old crate/drawer.... but maybe I am just tetched in the head...I need help on this one!

But as to the rest of the kitchen...

Every time I walk into my kitchen? I just smile...it is so bright...and so very cute...and the decision to take down that drywall? was a GREAT decision...it looks like it should...and it has such a roomy...airy...happy feel to it...cleaning is a breeze...a quick broom...a quick damp mop...with a little vinegar? and back to shiny tidy whitey...

My Honey...the first time he saw it? He said..."It looks like our house grew!" The illusion is amazing...it really does look waaay bigger inside!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

More on the kitchen...and DATE NIGHT!

I have been so involved in my kitchen...it is really hard when you tear your kitchen apart...there are so many details! Well, we got down to one detail that had not dawned on me yet....we have to move the stove...

When that thought finally entered my brain...I glanced sideways at my one and only...he was was happily working on trim, humming away.....every once in awhile, thru out the day, I would find that he had wrote something on the paper that I had covered the table with...cuz he is sweet like that...little notes...little faces...well, I finally got up the nerve to mention the fact that we had to move the stove...and I turned around to tell him...he was writing something on the paper..

."Honey?"..."yes, Baby Doll?"...."We have to move the stove..."
See the little marks thru the heart?
He said absolutely nothing...he just took his little pen...looked me dead in the eye...reached over...and scratched two marks thru the heart! Hmmmm...I guess I know how he feels about moving the stove, I might as well have said we need to move the house! HEE HEE! It made me laugh to see his face...he made up for it after...

My stove weighs 800 pounds...and I do love it so! but to move it? takes a super human act....we decided to use a roller system and a lever to lift it up to put the rollers under it...afterall...my pea brain thought...it only has to move 3 feet...I just could not live with the carboard and duct tape that I knew was under there...I didn't get a chance to do anything with that part of the floor before my Honey and all his friends came to move it into the house for heat in October 2009...

We hoisted it up with the pipe we used as a lever, that pipe? is now bent beyond use...a 5 ft long piece of galvanized steal pipe...I did only set the stove down one time... on my Honey's finger...(that is why I decided I was working the lever this time, no way was I sticking my hand under there to install the rollers! Yes, we have been thru this before, lol!)

This is what the floor looked like underneath the stove...cardboard actually melted into the floor from the previous owner not having a heat barrier...and duct tape residue from whoever duct taped the rugs to the floor...

It took the better part of 3 hours to get it all off...in the end? we decide just to prime that part quickly and put the stove back, my life was in an uproar without my stove! I can live with the rest of the kitchen gone but the stove? I can't live without it, I was totally lost!

After sanding and scraping and sanding and scraping for two days...moving that stove...we finally got to prime the floor in the kitchen! Aaah...the last frontier...to being DONE!

While waiting for it to dry...we decided we needed a few hours out of the house...where do you go in a tiny town when the streets roll up at 4 p.m/? and you have paint all over yourself? Well...on a date of course...to the COMPOST PILE! We elected to forego the tradition of Little Ceasars Pizza...for those of you that haven't read that post? (You can read that here) We had a tradition last summer...we would hop in the truck...grab two Little Ceasar's Pizza's and cruise the City Compost Pile...it seems that it has become our favorite place...to gather building materials and garden waste...and lot's and lot's of other things....

I was absolutely thrilled to see that the gates were open...