It's time for something to go right. Isn't it?

Our basement is a mess.  Carpet is gone, laminate is gone.  Miss Kat is sleeping in Andy's old bedroom.  She's also taken over the newly remodeled bathroom.  (And she broke off one of the new towel rods.)  She has stuff upstairs, downstairs, and in the garage.

The garage is so full of her stuff that I couldn't get to the recycling yesterday.  I can get to the freezers, but can't get to much else.

Kev and I went carpet/flooring shopping in Wichita Saturday.  It's rather overwhelming when you don't know what you want, and you don't really know what you want to spend.  We'd discussed our options.  We decided to go back with carpet. We tossed around the idea of carpet tiles, but we wanted more information about them before committing.  We've tossed around radiant heat with tile or wood.  But we just didn't really feel strongly one way or another about anything.

On the drive, we were enjoying music on the radio, when we noticed the display going bonkers.  (Bonkers IS an adjective!)  It started flashing, the display kept blinking, going dark, becoming normal, going bonkers again.  We were almost to Wichita when it went OFF.  Just blacked out.  Then we smelled hot plastic.  Wei figured it had shorted out and all was well.  Who really needs the display of the clock and the radio station?

Then we attempted to turn it off.  Nothing.
I attempted to turn it down.  Nothing.
I tried to change the station.  Nothing.

We had no control of the radio.  We finally pulled the fuse just to turn the darn thing off.

At this point, I was fed up.  Frustrated.  We paid off the loan for this car one month ago.  I was ready to go buy a new one.

But, logic prevailed, and we continued with our flooring shopping.  We took a break for lunch and our friends, Kim and Bob called.  They were headed to Wichita as well, so we hooked up with them and spent the rest of the day running around.  We even went to supper.  If they hadn't come down, I'd have probably bought a new vehicle.  Not because I want to, but because I just want something to go right!

Yesterday, Kev went out to start our Diesel pickup.

It wouldn't start.

He fiddled with this and that.  Nothing.
He changed the fuel filter.  Nothing.

I tell ya, after all the water issues, along with trouble we've been having with our home internet, and now TWO vehicles acting up...I've just about had it!

Maybe we should  have gone car shopping!

After the events of the last two weeks, I'm ready for a break.  It's time for something to go right!

Good bye laminate floors

Last Thursday morning, Kevin went down to feed the dogs at 6 a.m.  He quickly came back upstairs, very angry, and said, "The basement is full of water."

He then disappeared back downstairs.

I went down to find him mopping up water in the main room.  You know, the one we'd finished remodeling a little over a year ago.  The floor was soaked.  Laminate floor + lots of water = disaster.

Also soaked were the bathroom floor, and both bedroom floors.  But where did the water come from?  The main floor bathrooms are both over the garage.  The garage was dry.  We checked the middle bedroom, because the kitchen drain and the laundry room are above it.  Dry ceiling and walls.  That left the basement bathroom.  But no water was running in there.

Finally, through process of elimination, we decided it had to have been the toilet.  The top of the toilet was wet, but it wasn't running over, and the water level was normal.  Kev flushed it, it flushed just fine.  We decided it had to have been plugged and eventually, after running over for hours, resolved itself.  Either that or the dogs did something.

Poor Miss Kat, she was blamed for the fiasco.

Poor us, we had a mess on our hands.

 See the swollen seams?

 Here, the trim bowed.

 The floor in the middle bedroom

The floor in Miss Kat's room.  (Yes, she's a pig.  she had stuff all.over.the.floor.)

I contacted our insurance company.  An Adjuster came out on Monday.  I stayed home from work to visit with him.  All went well, we're set with insurance to replace it all.

On that same Monday morning, around 6:20, Kevin came rushing back into the bedroom, turned on lights, started throwing clothes around, and said, "We just had a pipe burst. I'm sorry, but I had to turn off the water."

What?

Yes, it was -4 outside.  Yes, a water pipe broke in the wall by the stairs.  He just happened to be on the stairs and heard it break.  His quick thinking saved us from MORE water damage.

But, this meant that I'd be home all day without water.  Which meant no bath for me.  It also meant no laundry as well!

But, we're prepared.  I keep bottled water, and I keep one of the water coolers full in the garage.  So I had water.  Kev repaired the pipe that night and put extra insulation in the wall.  We've ripped out the carpet and the laminate floor.  We're now deciding just what to put down now.

I think we've both agreed that we won't put laminate down again.  While it's pretty, the basement was colder this winter.  We really think we need that insulation aspect of carpet. Miss Kat wants laminate in her bedroom, and we might do that--simply because it's a small area and we think we can salvage enough to do her room.  

But for the main living area...we're leaning to carpet tiles at this point.

Who knows.  All I know is I'm going to miss my wood floors.  I also really  hope that we are DONE with water issues!

Countertops...check!

Miracle of all miracles, we finished putting down our new counter tops.  Formica is down.  New edging is on and stained.  It's finally a functioning kitchen again!

 This is the bar area where it meets the west wall.  Here you can see the finished shelf Kev built.

 The sink area... note the nice wood looking back splash!

 Over by the stove.  (Yes, that's two new loaves of homemade bread on the counter.)

 Here's a close-up of how we finished the front edge of the counter top.  It's a wee bit distressed and jagged.  On purpose!

The cabinet on the left is one Kevin built me years ago.  We stained it to better match the edge of the new counter tops.

And, we're trying to decide about staining the cabinets.  The doors and the fronts won't be a problem--they are solid wood.  But the sides of the cabinets...they aren't wood.  They are thin plywood covered with vinyl.  So, do I paint that vinyl to match my wall color (to be determined.  I'm still thinking of leaving it green.)  Or do we spend MORE money on cabinets that I hope will be temporary.  Right now, Kev's leaning toward leaving the cabinets alone and not re-staining them.  I was ready to stain them, until this past Thursday.  (that post is above.)

I think we'll worry about the basement, and then we'll come back to the kitchen and make a final decision about whether or not to stain the cabinet fronts.  (But I'm always open to advice and ideas!)

Andy's bathroom remodel

When we bought this house, there was one room that was not painted white.  It was this bathroom, the main bath, the guest bath, or as we call it, "Andy's bathroom."  He doesn't live with us anymore, but it will probably always be "Andy's bathroom".

 When we first walked in, it was a little overwhelming, all this purple--even the ceiling was purple!

 But, with daylight streaming in the skylight, it's a nice bright room!  That skylight is the only window in this bathroom, and I really love it.  I'd like to put a skylight in my laundry room too, but that will have to wait until we have to replace the roof.  I would never have picked this color, nor would I ever have painted the ceiling.  It's textured. Not a popcorn ceiling, but with what I call a swirly pattern.  Like it was combed with someone's fingers.  Unfortunately, this bathroom had a crappy tub.  It was a one piece unit--walls and tub all made of fiberglass.  Molded into one piece.  And it never drained well.  And the faucet was crap.  We decided to remove the tub and install a walk in shower.  We've still got 2 bathrooms with 2 tubs, and since this one is used primarily as a shower by guests, we decided to make the change.

 Construction wasn't without some challenges...the vent pipe was under the tub, the water lines came up through the floor instead of in the wall and we had to move the drain 6 inches.  We chose the above shower kit.  It's an Onyx product.  Solid surface.  And it's manufactured here in Kansas.  It also has a lifetime guarantee.  My brother had one installed in his house and he really likes it.  It's easy to clean (vinegar and water) and needs very little maintenance.  Someday, we can even add a bench of we desire.  We also replaced the floor in front of the toilet/shower area.  We found a wood looking tile in barnwood grey.  Was super easy to lay the tile and used very little grout.  (In fact, I have a nice big bucket of grey grout if anyone needs some.  I bought way too much grout!)

Kev left the transition strip brown.  Me, I'd have stained it grey to match the floor.

We even switched out the towel rods and the faucet to oil-rubbed bronze.  (We'll replace the actual sink soon. Someone accidently did something to the drain and it leaks.  He damaged the sink, not the drain pipe.  I just need to pick out a new sink and this bathroom is complete!)

I left it all purple because I really had no idea what other color to paint this room, and the thought of painting the ceiling terrified me!  And, I still like the purple!  It turned into a very nice looking bathroom ready for visitors!

A simple project...

This is my kitchen.   I've always had a love/hate relationship with this kitchen.  I hate the white floor.  (Why would anyone put in a white floor when you live in the country?)  I like the counter space, but I dislike the "cabinets."  They aren't real cabinets.  Well, the upper cabinets are real, but the lower ones are a framework with shelves open from one end to the other.  And the corner cabinet by the stove and the one by the dishwasher are so deep and run back in the corners where you can't retrieve anything, or even see anything.  They are cheap, cheap, cheap.  Functional--to a point, but still cheap.(Please ignore the formica on the floor, and the mess.  And keep reading for an explanation of the mess!)

 And, now ignore the half loaf of bread :)  Concentrate instead on the colors and the formica.  While I have plenty of counter space, I've never been crazy about the tile on the edge of the cabinets and the backsplash.  Just not really our colors. I also don't really like the drawer pulls or the knobs, but that's minor.  About a year ago, the formica above the dishwasher and the corner of the cabinet above started popping lose.  The glue had lost it's stick.  We've looked at new countertops, and new cabinets--upper and lower cabinets.  We've priced it all and we've discussed changing the layout.  We just haven't made the commitment to actually take the leap and DO the remodeling or spend the money!

 Right after Christmas, we found some formica on sale at Menards.  We picked out a pattern we liked and bought it and brought it home.  We also bought some tile for the backsplash and some wood for the front edges of the cabinets.  Total spent?  Right around $100--give or take $25.  We figured that when we finally can do the entire kitchen remodel, we can "afford" to waste $100.  AND, honestly, it will be 3-5 years before I see us doing the entire kitchen, so we'll get our money's worth.

We'd recently been to a home show where a rustic bath and kitchen remodeler had a display.  One of the ways he finished cabinet edges was to put wood trim up and distress it, even distressing the formica at the edge of the cabinet.  Both Kev and I really liked the look, so we decided to attempt it ourselves.

Before starting, we discussed what we were going to do with our bar.  (pictured above.)  The counter is deeper than standard countertops.  It's 36" across.  It's a little low for us, and it tends to become a collector of junk.  Since our stock formica didn't come in 36" width,  (and we didn't want to special order it)  we brainstormed for ideas.  Kev's come up with an idea to make a higher shelf on the back side.  We'll piece in the formica on that side, which will be covered and not readily visible. It will hide some of the junk that shows up, and will be higher, which we'd both enjoy. I'm still a wee bit skeptical, but he's pulled off other ideas, so I will just have faith in him!

And, so on Saturday, Kev was restless, and decided to just tear into the kitchen.

We tore off the bar formica first.  Let me tell you, formica is sharp.  I have quite a few cuts on my hands!  We discovered that using my iron loosened up the glue which made it faster and easier to rip the formica off the countertop.  (Didn't do a lot for my iron, it's all scratched now!)  Then Kev cut the formica, and started building his shelf.  He did all the cutting, and I brushed on the contact cement.

Now, I've never done formica myself before. I've just watched some guys at work put in a new counter top on my circulation desk years ago.  I knew they used a lot of shims as they were fitting the formica, because they told me, once those two pieces touched, they were stuck.  There's no repositioning of the formica.  When it's down, it's down.

I asked Kev what he was going to use for shims.  Nothing.  I asked if he's done formica work before.  He say's he has. I suggested we get come cardboard for shims, and he finally did, but we had 3 pieces only and well, long story short, we ruined our formica.  Yep, it stuck where we didn't want to, and we tore the heck out of it trying to get it un-stuck!

So Kev said a few not-so-nice words and had a little temper-tantrum and we moved on to the two smaller counter tops.

They went down easy peasy.  He applied the trim, and I put up the tile backsplash.  (It's a wood grain 6" x 24" tile. Like floor tiles made to look like wood. Very rustic looking and probably very unique.)   In the photo above, he's distressing the wood trim.  I've stained the trim on the end he's not working with.  It looks nice.  BUT...it's so much darker that we've decided we will need to strip and stain all the cabinets.  Which might be another issue, because the side panels of the cabinets, and the front of the bar is 1/8" cheap plastic looking wood veneer.  I'm going to try to sand and stain it, but if it won't take the stain, we'll move on to plan B.  The upper cabinets should take the stain.  SHOULD...  Who knows, we might have to replace everything before we're finished.

Miss Kat and I are going to Wichita this coming weekend to get a bridesmaid dress for her, so I'll stop by and pick up another piece of Jamocha Granite Laminate for the bar. We need to do it and the long counter top where the sink is. (the first photo.)  I already know I will need to paint again.  I like the green--even if it is much brighter than I'd planned.  It's not really the neon that it looks above!  New paint color will probably be in the yellow/tan scheme.  I also joked with Kev that the countertops would look much nicer with black appliances instead of the white.  But we are NOT switching them out just for cosmetic purposes!

Really, replacing the countertops moved quickly--we'd probably have gotten most of it done if we hadn't ruined that ONE piece.  But...live and learn!  We'll get it.  We always do!  And it will look nice.  Promise.