Wolf's Den

It's been essentially nonstop since Friday. And not going to be much better for this week either.

Friday, I packed up nearly every book in the bedroom. 7 boxes worth. And we're not talking small boxes either. One I couldn't move by myself and neither could Mark, it took both of us.

Then I moved 2 3 shelf, 3 foot long bookcases, 5 shelf book case, both end tables, the pseudoclock/bookshelf, and miscellaneous odds and ends.

When he got home, we moved the last box, and he took apart the bed. That night, we slept on the mattress set on the floor- after vacuuming the carpet for a last time again.

Sat saw us moving the mattress set out, after we took the drawers out of the dresser and chest of drawers, then we moved them, the upstairs TV and cable box to the center of the room, covered with plastic and primed the walls and ceiling with Kilz. The outside walls were done twice. The areas were the mold/mildew was, was done in three coats. Luckily the topcoats of actual color will also be mildew resistant. If that doesn't stop it, nothing will.

Then the dressers were moved and the mattresses put back down for the night.

Sunday, I took Caena over to the InLaws so the dust and potential mold/mildew spores that may have been in the carpet wouldn't irritate her when we were tearing the carpet out. She had a puppy play date in other words. She's looking immensely better and it's only been 2 weeks since we got rid of the mold/mildew. Note to self- give her a bath today.

When I got home, Mark had moved the mattresses and started in on the carpet. 3/4 was gone already, bagged up and out of the house. Between the 2 of us it took another 3 hours to get the rest out, get the staples out of the floor, pull up the tack strips and nails, then scrub the floor twice, mop it again for good measure, moving the dressers, TV and cable box twice in the process and then, finally dropping the mattresses back on the floor again.

Needless to say, the cats are freaked out right now, especially Aries.

This week, I paint the room. I like to paint, so no biggie doing it by myself. Mark will help with the ceiling. (Valspar Waverly Classics Blue Sail for the wall, Nordic Blue for the trim and Blue Boy for the ceiling, from Lowes. )

Sometime this summer, we'll see about renting a floor sander and sanding the wood floors up there, they are that screwed up in a few areas. Doing it by hand is out of the question. Then we'll restain and seal it to match the downstairs and hallway.

Then we get to do the back bedroom. Whee fun. If we ever own our own house again, we'll be pros at this.

I don't think my body remembers how NOT to ache or be stiff anymore.}:/ And to top it off, yesterday I woke up with a slightly sore throat. *sigh* And thanks to being so worn out, I'm constantly seeing Max out of the corner of my eye, laying on the floor right behind my chair. It's disconcerting to say the least.

So after we finished the ceiling, we started on the walls.



Valspar Signature Colors, National Trust for Historic Preservation Colors, Green Tea Leaves, # 5004-1c in semigloss for the walls, 2 coats and Valspar Signature Colors, Waverly Classics, Smooth Pebble, #WV36006 in semigloss, 2 coats for the trim.

The walls are actually lighter than they look in some photos, more of a sage green, and everything reflects the light beautifully as well as compliments the other colors.

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So, last Friday, we started on the last stages of the kitchen remodel. If you remember, last August, the back wall had to be rebuilt, and the backdoor was replaced.

At that time, we went ahead and primed the walls and ceiling for painting. And that's where it stayed until this month.

So, last Friday we had friends over and they helped move every appliance we couldn't move by ourselves out of the kitchen and into the living room. Sat we prepped for painting- cleaning up any dust, touching up the primer, that sort of thing.

( PEEKCTURES! )

So.

Kitchen stuffs...

New flooring... done, completely. Last square was laid tonight.

New backsplash... done, completely. Last fiddly bit of brushed stainless tile was cut and placed tonight.

Painting... well, ceiling is done. Most of the trim is done- need to finish one window (has quite a few individual panes to edge in), then the short wall next to the counter and cabinets, as well as above the cabinets needs finishing. Should be done tomorrow.

Cabinet fronts are painted, drawer fronts done, new pulls in place.

Tomorrow I finish the wall and window trim. Then prime and paint the ceiling fan body and hopefully start on the blades. The cabinet doors have 2 coats of rimer and if it doesn't rain tomorrow like they're calling for, the first coat of paint will be put on them.

And the backdoor needs to be primed and painted. But that can wait until next week, honestly.

Then we need to get some door stop trim molding for around the baseboards, get under cabinet lights (need to order from online because the ones we want, aren't available in the store), caulk the edges of the backsplash to 'hide/cover' the cut edges and we'll be completely finished.

Oh and a new threshold between the kitchen and living room.

So. Hoping by Saturday to be completely finished. We're in the home stretch, just a few minor details left.

Photos forthcoming, starting tomorrow, in several posts, of the process beginning to end.

So ready to be finished. Well, with the kitchen anyway. Then I get to paint the bathroom! Heh. It's a small room, so won't take but a few hours to do.

After that, it'll be fall before we tackle the bedrooms.}:P

The Daring Cooks’ February 2012 challenge was hosted by Audax & Lis and they chose to present Patties for their ease of construction, ingredients and deliciousness! We were given several recipes, and learned the different types of binders and cooking methods to produce our own tasty patties!

Yes, in the midst of tearing my kitchen apart for painting (posts forthcoming detailing that), I still managed to do this Challenge.



Ok, so I only managed to do one recipe and cheated on the other patty.}:P I've been wanting to make Potato Latkes for some time now, so that's what I made, along with some store bought hamburgers with applewood smoked bacon and cheddar cheese in them (they're great for frying inside, not so much on the grill as they tend to stick.)


The Latkes were delicious and in perusing the Challenge recipes, I noticed they're really not much different from Potato Rostis, the bug difference being one has onions whereas the other doesn't.

However, served with fried mushrooms and a rich mushroom gravy, they made a very satisfying dinner the night before we had friends over to help us move appliances out of the kitchen- after we made them dinner of course.}:P I also topped my Potato Latke with a dollop of sour cream.

And now, 4 days later, I have my kitchen back, it's 90% finished- a few odds and ends to do, nothing big anymore- well, for now, until we refinish the countertop- so I can get back in there and try more versions of fried patties}:P Particularly that zucchini one...

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Shiny! New bathroom floor! We still need to get the rest of the old silicon off the front of the bottom of the tub and then put down new silicon aout the edge but the floor is done, including the shiny new transition plate in the doorway.

After we finish the kitchen, we'll be working on deciding on paint colors for the bathroom. Haven't even though about it yet. Then, working on the back bedroom- getting rid of the old corner desk, getting a new buffet, table and bookcase for it, after we tear out the carpet, paint and refinish the floor. THEN we can tackle the bedroom as we'll have a place to put the bed, dressers, and bookcases in there.

I expect by the end of next year we might be done. LOL.

With or without an 'extra' added ingredient...

Still haven't replied to that last email. Not sure I ever will, honestly. But it's now residing at the back of my mind, ready to bound to the forefront when I'm not paying attention. Quite honestly, I'm not sure how to politely respond.

Had a breakthrough on my dad's side of the family. I found his birth dad's grave site and that he was essentially told a tall tale by his birth mom as to when and where he died. Even have a photo of the headstone now too. So that was pretty cool. Also turns out his adoptive father comes from one of the first Pioneer families in New York, and a very illustrious family at that. There was even a book written about his 6th Great Grandfather and his descendants, which fills in a lot of gaps as far as dates for me too. That was pretty cool.



Kitchen remodel has come to a standstill (which is fine, honestly, as we don't have the money to buy the paint right now anyway). I was primer coating the ceiling when some of the decorative finish (sanded paint like stucco stuff on the ceiling) start peeling off over by the sink. So we figured we'd scrape it down and just paint over it. After all, who looks at a ceiling that much? Well, besides me.

Well, started scraping and found... well, see for yourself-





Yeah. Seems there was STILL a leak somewhere upstairs in the bathroom. I'd originally thought the water staining on the ceiling (not the back wall, that's old) was from when the faucet was leaking under the bathroom sink 2-3 months ago. But when I peeled the finish back and it dripped on me, uh, no that wasn't from 2-3 months ago, this was recent.

Plumbers came yesterday afternoon. Looked under the tub, then pulled the toilet and found that the flange where the toilet sits and where the tub drain connects (which in turn connects to the sewer stack), is cracked. And it needs replacing sooner rather than later. It's not got a temp. fix on it, but that won't last forever.

So now, the landlord needs to figure out when would be a good time to do this because one of two things needs to happen- A- the floor in the bathroom gets pulled up or B- the ceiling in the kitchen gets cut open.

Either way will leave us without a working bathroom for at least a day, so someone else will need to be here while they work in case one of us needs to run to the gas station to use the bathroom. The week he's currently considering doing this may be the week the InLaws are in town for Christmas.

Yeah, fun times, I tell ya.

The only good thing about this is that we may end up going ahead and laying the new tiles in the bathroom at that time too and getting it out of the way now rather than wait until next spring/summer.




Was looking over my sales stats in my Artfire, Zibbet and Big Cartel shops, trying to see if I could justify still paying out $25/month for all three shops, to figure out if sales were still good enough to warrant keeping them all. And quite frankly, they aren't.

Last sale in my Zibbet shop was February 2011. No sales since March. Costs my $10/mon.

Last sale in my Big Cartel shop was March 2011. No sales since April. Costs me $10/mon.

Last sale in my Artfire shop - not including trades as they really bring me no money- was May 2011. No sales since June. Costs me $6/mon.

So. I've had to make some hard choices and one of those will be to drop my Big Cartel shop back down to free status. That means I have to chose 3 of my best items to showcase there, starting in January.

I'll give Zibbet until Sept 2012. That will be exactly one year. Then, if sales haven't picked up to where they are at least paying for the shop, I'll decide from there whether to keep throwing money at it, or to close it.

Artfire is the cheapest and I've been there the longest/ have sort of a customer base, as well as friends, so I'm definitely keeping it. I am NOT going back to Etsy. That's a given.



In other news, I've listed 5 new kumihimo cuffs this week and have 2 more that'll be listed by tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll blog the last 4. After that I'm taking a day or two break from beading/weaving and will have 2 more sometime next week.

After those 2 are finished, I have plans for at least 2 more and a necklace. That should beef up my shops somewhat, I would think. Might run a % off sale for a few weeks in December.



Have decided to not do goodie bags/boxes this year, except for immediate family, as I'll have to send Yule gifts to them anyway- most of which I already have. Food stuffs has gotten too expensive right now, money is tight, the economy sucks, yadda yadda.

I'll still be making my mom's Captain Crunch crack Candy and maybe some sort of cookies, but that's about it. I just don't feel up to it this year either.



And now, I'm going to go open the box of books I just got from Barnes&Noble.com and then go play Assassin's Creed: Revelations. The special content I was supposed to get with the Signature Edition did indeed install. Vlad III Tepes' sword is quite cool, the 'tomb' was a little disappointing as far as how short/easy it was, honestly.

Haven't played since before Thanksgiving, so I'm looking forward to a few hours of play time. Maybe I'll finally get that last Tower away from the coward Templar today, and keep it- which turns out is harder than getting them in the first place, lol. But fun, nonetheless.

So much for that. The disc drive in the PS3 decided to die right when I hit the button to load my game. No more video games or Netflix movies on the PS3 until we can afford the $100+ it'll cost to repair. Wonderful.