After the Visit

 Our week with Margaret  (Susan’s sister) is over and we have survived. 

Not that we didn’t enjoy ourselves. We went to plays in the park, the museum, miniature golf, and we ate out a bunch. The girls did a lot of shopping too.

That’s more activity than we are used to and also, we are now quite fat.

So, we are going to settle back into our normal routine and enjoy the slow paced retired life we have become accustomed to.

We had lunch with a bunch of friends today. We always meet on any month that has a 31st in it. We meet at Jimmy Johns on the South Hill and then walk down to Baskin and Robbins for some ice cream.

Susan and I skipped B&R because…well…you might have heard that we are fat.

Instead, we went to Costco to replenish our beer supply along with a few other items.

I’m sitting on the front porch right now writing this missive and enjoying a beer…because I can!

Knob Day

The cabinet knobs we ordered from the Home Depot arrived with yesterdays mail. So I got to work last evening to install them.

Today I am attempting to get the rest of the knobs installed. I’m about to start on the pantry.

Here it is looking all fresh and un-knobbed.

I purchased a knob template at the Depot and I am using that to drill the holes. I had to modify it a bit so the drill hole lined up more to the center area of the corner of the door.

Here are a couple of shots with the template.

Now, it all looks pretty. The only problem is that we must have miscounted. I need ten more.

1:26PM: We have returned from the Home Depot and a few other errands and we have procured the needed knobs. I guess I had better get to work.

Counter Top Snafubar

 We have just been informed that the counter tops will not be installed on Susan’s birthday as we had planned. They discovered that not all the counter top parts had come in. Apparently, they will be delivered to the Cabinet Shop on Friday, August 4th. At that time, they will notify us of the new install date. 

So I have canceled the plumber. We are still in wait mode. We have been working on the skins for each end of the island. They are cut but not yet glued into place.

Susan’s sister Margaret will be visiting for 10 days starting Friday. That means that not much will be happening with the kitchen while she is here.

The good news is that the set of drawers we ordered are in. I shall be running to pick that up today.

The other good news is because of the counter screw up, they are not charging us for the drawer cabinet. That saves us about a grand.

So, we will get to work after Margaret leaves to get all the corner cabinets in place. Then, when the time finally arrives for the installation of the counter tops, everything will be here.

At this point, we are not holding our breath.

Noa Borealis

Yesterday’s newspaper featured a front page article on the Northern Lights. Known scientifically as the Aurora Borealis, the article said that Thursday evening would be our best bet to see the lights in this region.

The article suggested that if one wanted to see the lights, they should get away from the city where the light pollution is heavy. A guy from a local astronomy club said he would be at the Fishtrap Lake Recreational Area and the best viewing would be between 10 and 2.

Susan has never seen the Northern Lights so we thought it would be worth it to have an adventure and head to Fishtrap.

It was a 30 mile drive to the west of us.

When we arrived at the spot, there were several cars in the large gravel parking lot. Many of the people were sitting in lawn chairs and facing in a northish direction.

We got there about 10:30 and decided to stay until midnight.

The glow of Spokane was very distinct and got even brighter as our eyes acclimated to the darkness. The sky was clear and the stars were really amazing. But no lights.

We saw lots of high altitude aircraft, a few low altitude helicopters and at least one satellite. But no lights.

We heard the plaintiff call of the coyote off in the distance, but even that failed to muster a flash of light from the north.

So, we called it a night at 12 o’clock and returned home. 

If I find an article today that says the lights started at 12:01, someone from the local astronomical club will be sitting uncomfortably on their stethoscope.

Actually, that wouldn’t be terrible uncomfortable. They should be sitting on a telescope.

Counter Top Update

The counter tops are set to be installed on July 26th, Susan’s birthday. That’s a little more than two weeks away. We are still waiting for the 24 inch drawer set to come in so they will not be doing the counter tops in the corner. They told us it will not be a huge amount for them to return and finish that last corner counter top.

I have called Tracy the Plumber and he is scheduled to come August 4th to hook up the sink and dish washer.

We are getting close to getting close to having a working kitchen. Not complete, but working.

Flooring Fiasco

The bad news is that we cannot return the flooring. Even though it does not have the foam pad we were told it came with. They will be providing the foam pad for us.

The good news is that the flooring is not the terrible product that the horrible reviews seem to indicate. There were only four bad reviews on this one website and nothing else, positive or otherwise.

Susan spoke to a guy who does this kind of work and he said it’s a good product.

So we are going with it. Mostly because we have no choice.

But the floor is not the fiasco that the title would indicate.

Kitchen Setback Report

There’s a lot to catch up on so sit back and strap in.

Kitchen Setback Number 1: All the cabinets arrived and everything seems fine. We tried to layout the cabinets in the corner and discovered a problem. We need to order an 18 inch wide drawer cabinet plus a spacer to fill the space next to the fridge. So, that’s four to six weeks out.

Kitchen Setback B: Our gas cooktop is toast. We purchased it along with the oven some 15 years ago because we new a guy with fairly new appliances who was remodeling his kitchen. We paid him $200 for the double oven and the gas cooktop.

The downdraft fan was successfully installed last Tuesday. I laid the cooktop on top of the cabinet, plugged it in and gave it a test. When I turned the switch for the bottom left burner, the igniters for two burners were firing. One burner would not fire at all.

I took the cooktop to the Appliance Hospital where they charged me $55.00 to tell me the parts they need to fix it are no longer available.

So, we are looking to spend $600 to $1,000 for a new one. The one bright spot to this problem is we will be able to buy a cooktop that fits the space a little better than this one would have.

Kitchen Setback III:The wood laminate flooring we have purchased does not have a pad attached to each piece, as we were told. We did a Google search of the product and did not find a lot of good news. The reviews were horrible.

We want to return this stuff and look for something else.

It’s the Fourth of July weekend so nobody is available at Cabinet Pro to talk about these issues.

On the positive side, we (Susan) have been working on the deck and the painting is very close to being completed. I have done a little of the work but Susan has definitely carried the ball on this project.

I’ve been doing assorted jobs that need to get done but don’t involve the deck.

Two weeks later, we are still eating brisket. It has been delightful and I’m loving it.

At some point towards the end of last summer, I poured a bunch of cement into the hole the skunks have dug that goes under the cement slab of the garage. They have been burrowing in there for many years and I wanted to put a stop to it.

Skunks are very good diggers and one managed to dig around the cement I poured. We have been waiting to see the fresh litter of skunk puppies and they have finally made their appearance.

There are seven of them, plus the mother. They are cute as hell. I think seven is the most we’ve ever seen. 

The plan is that they generally leave for the river sometime in late August. At that point, I’m bringing a cement truck in here and making sure that hole is sealed.

In the meantime, they are fun to watch.

Brisket 2023

It is times again for the cooking of the brisket.

We purchased a 9 pound brisket at Costco earlier this week. It’s probably down to 8 pounds now that I have cut off a bunch of the fat.

I seasoned it last night and it sat for about 14 hours coated with salt and pepper.

It is now just after 9:00AM and the brisket is on the grill. This is going to take seven to eight hours and it shall be delicious.

I am changing the subject now to discuss our skunk. I’m pretty sure I have announced here recently that we have another skunk. She managed to dig a hole around the cement I poured last summer into the cravas of the heaved cement floor of the garage.

So…we are again stuck with a skunk who will most likely have babies and spend the next couple of months here. We can live with that. We have before.

Last night, the babies appeared. SEVEN of them. I don’t have good pictures of them yet. You’ll have to settle for these.

Back the the brisket.

It’s a little after ten now and the meat is up to 100°. For this first part, I’m cooking the meat to 170°. My instructions say that will take 5 hours but I’ve had get to 170° sooner. After it hits one seventy, I will wrap it in aluminum (known as “the Texas Crutch”) and continue the cook until it reaches 205°. That will take another couple of hours.

11:27AM: This thing is going fast. Too fast! When I checked the temperature at 11, it was at 180. I pulled it off and wrapped it in foil. It’s very snuggly wrapped now and I closed off both vents. The top and bottom vents are just slightly open. I hope that slows it down.

I’m wondering if I can trust the thermometer I’m using. I can’t find my wireless “Meeter” probe. I have no idea where it’s hiding but I really wish I had it.

12 Noon: We’ll, this is the quickest slow cook I’ve ever done. It took barely half an hour to reach 205. I pulled it the grill and placed it fat side up in my cooler. According to the recipe, it stays in the cooler for three hours. It should cool to around 160 in that time.

Stand by and we’ll find out. 

3:47PM: I am not disappointed. I think it came out pretty good but Susan thinks it’s too salty. I can see where she might think that but too salty has never been an issue for this heart patient.

It was still hot when I pulled the roast out of the ice chest. In any event, I think it’s going to be a good dinner.

  

Sliding Shelves

The rumor is that all the cabinets we are waiting on are in town and will be delivered next week. That gets us back on track. 

While we've been waiting, we've been working on the deck...the railing and arbor on the deck. We've been scraping and sanding and filling holes and cracks with wood putty. I've been using the epoxy version of wood putty. You mix a hardener into the main paste and then you have about ten minutes to work with it before it becomes too hard.

Susan has been doing most of the work on the deck. Yesterday she finally got to start priming. 

I had another project to work on today. We ordered a rack with two sliding shelves earlier in the week. It cost about $90.00. It arrived today so I assembled and installed it in the cabinet we designated for it.

It took me a little bit to figure out what I was doing but once I had it, it all made sense and went together easily. 

    

Another Setback

 Carter arrived at 7:30, right on schedule to help me install the downdraft fan. I brought him into the kitchen to survey the project. He agreed that even though it is very tight, the fan and the gas cooktop would fit in the cabinet.

He started getting a bunch of measurements, he cut a hole in the bottom for the fan duct, and I gave him the installation manual and the mounting brackets for the fan.

I ordered the brackets back in March through G.E. When they came, I just packed them by the fan and left them alone.

It was immediately apparent that they sent the wrong brackets. Why I didn’t double check when they came in, I cannot tell you.

Needless to say, the fan did not get installed today.

I drove over to Fred’s Appliance where we puRchased the unit and had Devin order the correct parts. AGAIN, why I didn’t order the brackets from him in the first place, I cannot say. I clearly have a recessive gene that prevents me from thinking clearly.

Additionally needless to say, no work is being done on the kitchen today.

Well…that’s not true either. Susan is working on stowing plates and platters and small appliances in the cabinets. The mess in the dining and living rooms is receding.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Now that the Pantry is finished and being loaded up with food, we set today to start work on the island. I have Carter from Anderson Sheet Metal coming back on Friday to help me install the downdraft fan. That cabinet, which has the gas cook top on it, will be the anchor for the island location.

So we broke out all the island cabinets and hauled them into the kitchen and got them in place.

Can you see a problem in the picture above. No, it's not the model.

The problem is that the end of the island is not flush. We are missing a cabinet. The other problem that is less apparent in the photo is the the thinner cabinets on the north side of the island are the wrong size. They are supposed to be 36 inches wide. The ones we unpacked are 30 inches wide. 

So we are another six weeks out waiting for the revised cabinets plus the one that we are missing. That puts us into July before we can get the counter top people in here.

Washing dishes in the bathroom is getting old.

Pantry Completion

Shaun came by this afternoon and we buttoned up the work on the Pantry.

I have attached little tabs of white duct tape to the cabinets so they are easier to open. We haven't even looked at hardware for the doors and drawers yet.

Anyway, now we can get to work on the island.

More Deck Work

Progress continues slowly on the kitchen as we haven’t seen Shaun in a few days. I’m not blaming him. In fact, I’m tempted to finish up without him but he has a couple of tools that I would need to do it properly.

In the meantime, we have the deck. The railing needs to be rehabilitated. Susan has been working tirelessly on the deck railing. She’s been scraping and sanding and filling cracks with wood putty. Yesterday she finally got around to priming and it continued today.

I have been working on a different part of the deck…the decking. Earlier this year, I noticed a couple of soft spots on the deck where the decking felt mushy.

I got under the deck to discover a badly rotting structure. Not everything. Just a couple of the joists that sit on the beams. The area with the mushy decking was a mostly rotted joist. I could not even remove some of the deck screws because they were seated in rotten wood. 

I don’t think the superstructure of the deck was properly built in the first place. When we redecked it several years ago, my builder commented on how under sized the joist were. I remember one joist was a 2x4. We replaced the sub standard lumber with 2x6’s and even sister Ed some pieces on to that. 

I have purchased a couple of treated 2x6’s for the replacements. I’m not yet sure how I will be attaching the new joists. I’ll figure that out when I get it down there.

Pantry Progress

 Another day of great progress. 

We pretty much focused on the pantry. We got the pantry cabinets in place but not totally screwed in yet.

I have some homework to do in the next couple of days. I have to drill new holes in the sides of the tall cabinets to accommodate the narrower shelves. We are hoping Shaun will return on Saturday to get everything buttoned up in the pantry.

We spent most of the afternoon scraping on the deck railing. It is really long and tedious work. More tedious than scraping the kitchen windows down to bare wood.

We are very close to completing all the scraping. Next, it will be taping off the deck and then hitting everything with Primer. Susan is quite adamant about the Primer.

Memorial Monday

We had Shaun for four hours today and we made the most of it.

I started work yesterday to remove this cabinet. We have a full size one taking it's place so this one must go.

We keep a lot of stuff in this cabinet. But once I cleaned it out, I was amazed at how much stuff that was in there that we never use.

What are we going to do with all these locks? You would think we were Fort Knox...or a prison.

As I began, my goal was to remove it intact so I could hang it in the garage or someplace. It soon became clear that it was not coming out in one piece.

You may be able to see in the picture above that the cabinet is inset in the wall by about two inches.

So, I pulled out the Sawzall and went to work.

It didn't take too long and I don't think I caused too much damage to the wall in the course of removing the cabinet.

I had everything set up so when Shaun got here, it didn't take us too long to install the new cabinet.

Nice, huh?!

We also got the second pantry cabinet cut down to the proper depth, so we will be getting those cabinets screwed in next.

So that's how we spent our Memorial Weekend.

Serious Cabinet Work Day…or Not

Shaun came by today at about 2:30 and I was all set up for us to get to work. We got the other large pantry cabinet out into the yard to get the back cut off. Shaun wanted to finish the first cabinet and get the backing on it to see how it would all go.

Just as we were finishing the back, it started to rain. And once it started, it poured. My rain gauge shows almost a half inch of rain in about an hour.

We had to rush to get everything stowed but we did manage to finish the one cabinet. We still have to drill holes for the shelving and of course, got it all secured to the wall.

It’s quite the bummer to finally get some time to work on this with Shaun only to have Mom Nature come in and cut our work day short.

Deck Work

We have been spending the last couple of days working on the railing on our back deck. It has been 5 years since we painted and it needs it. We are kind of under the gun because we want to get it painted before the arbor posts and covered with hops and grape vines.

Shaun has been helping us with kitchen stuff during the evening so we are free during the day to scrape the railing. In addition, I have replaced a post and four rail posts that have pretty much rotted away.

Presently, I am watching the tail end of a deluge we just experienced. I will go out and check my rain gauge shortly but I can tell you that both of my 50 gallon rain barrels are overflowing.

It’s the start of the Memorial Day Weekend so I’m sure this isn’t sitting well with all the people heading to the campgrounds. We don’t have anywhere to go other than the Hub, so it’s no big deal to us.

Okay, I just checked my rain gauge and it was only up to a quarter inch. I’ll have to wait and see what the weather service says. The way it was coming down, it felt like a good couple of inches fell. But, that’s why I put up a rain gauge.

Breaking In An Oven

Tonight we fired up the oven and cooked some chicken. Everything seemed to work as it should and we are starting to figure out the particulars of this new oven...at least, new to us.

Today was a long day for both of us. Susuan was at church for most of the day helping with the Church Basement Sale. 

I was at a neighborhood event directing traffic at a free Dump Day. I think I said this the last time I worked a dump day, but I have never seen so many unwanted mattresses. We filled nine 8 yard dumpsters with garbage, one with yard debris and two with metal stuff. A lot of bikes, barbecues and washers.

We had planned to go to the Lilac Parade tonight but were so wiped out, we stayed home and watched it on TV.

The high temperature today was 89, which broke a record. I did not take any sun screen with me and am paying for it now.   

Part One of Phase Three

Our first bank of cabinets is almost finished. That's only taken three weeks. We had a disaster with the oven. One would think that when you order a cabinet, it would come with the correct size hole for the oven. One would be mistaken.

During the whole ordering process, I don't really remember what happened as far as the oven hole goes. I thought we gave them the make and model of the oven and they would get the size from that information. 

Well, we weren't ordering a completely custom cabinet so the hole was 27 inches wide and 41 inches tall. Our oven is 24" x 49". So we had to cut three inches into the top and four inches into the bottom and use spaces to fill in the three inches in width. To  be frank, it doesn't look very good and Shaun, who is helping us, said he has never had to do this to make an oven work.

We are going to fix it by placing some trim along the side and top of the oven. It will hide the little seams you can see in the picture above.

I do not remember the cabinet people talking to us about this little detail but they do not seem willing to accept any responsibility for the difference and said that is the standard way oven cabinets come because there are so many different sized ovens.

The good news is that the oven works. It has been sitting in our garage for at least 15 years and we are happy that it has endured the test of time sitting out there. 

Kitchen Remodel - Continued

Progress continues in the kitchen. Today, we got the oven cabinet in place and got the plug wired for the oven. Unfortunately, the hole space that the oven fits in is wrong. We need to cut 3 inches off the top and bottom, and narrow the sides by 3 inches. It's not perfect but it will come out okay...I hope.

We added another cabinet today. We decided against the desk option that was previously in the southeast corner of the kitchen and added a corner cabinet with a Lazy Susan turn table in it. That pushes things out 6 weeks but we think we can work around it.