Can this be the catastrophe?

Comments

So, almost every single home renovation project I’ve ever had has had something go very wrong.

In this one, everything’s been going quite smoothly, except:

  1. The flooring was supposed to arrive on Thursday, then it got delayed to today, now it’s delayed to tomorrow, and the contractors can’t move forward until the flooring is in hand (and they’re getting restless) EDIT: Oh right they did get some painting done (specifically applying a primer coat everywhere)
  2. On Friday I tripped over some of my stored clutter and injured myself worse than I’d realized at first (although not nearly as badly as it could have been!), so now I have impaired mobility and also a rather nasty scrape on my left shin which seems to be slightly infected (which is painful but doesn’t seem like it needs direct medical attention just yet)

Basically, if this can be the worst that happens on this project, I’ll be pretty happy. Thankfully it doesn’t seem like much else can go wrong, unless there’s some awful secret lurking in the laundry room (which is quite possible).

Read more…

My kitchen before this mess

Comments

Oh yeah, I neglected to actually take photos of my kitchen in operation before I’d cleared everything out on day 0 (where it didn’t look so bad), but I did just go back through my photos to find some examples of what the kitchen was like under normal circumstances.

Read more…

Kitchen Remodel II, day 1

Comments

I’m not sure why I’m calling this “Remodel II” because this is neither the second kitchen remodel I’ve gone through (it’s the fourth) nor the second I’ve had in this house. But it is the second one on this incarnation of my blog, so that’s probably it.

Anyway, today was demolition day.

Read more…

Kitchen Remodel II, day 0

Comments

Today I finished clearing out my kitchen getting ready for tomorrow’s demolition. Thankfully I actually had a few days to get it done this time, unlike last time when the contractor only let me know the demolition was going to happen at 5 PM the day before.

Because I had time to prepare it meant I could also actually do it in a semi-organized way. Which is good, because I have way less space for “staging” stuff in this house than I did in my last place.

Read more…

Bracing for impact

Comments

My kitchen renovation starts on Wednesday. Thankfully I have plenty of advance warning this time and have started to pack up the stuff in my kitchen; I need to spend a lot more time finishing that up tomorrow, though. I’ve only put a dent in things.

I hope that the end result of this is I’ll finally get rid of a lot of stuff I’m not using actively, or at least figure out a better way of storing the stuff I rarely use.

The new kitchen design is going to be the same basic layout, but there’s a few nice changes that are going to happen. The lower cabinet next to the refrigerator is going to be replaced with a drawer unit, which will be much more useful for me (I’ll probably move my pots and pans in there, and the rarely-used stuff that currently lives in there goes into the sideboard where those were kept). The weird, awkward storage cabinets that flank the stove will become less-weird storage cabinets, with a utility drawer on top (but still a door down below).

Read more…

Yet another kitchen remodel

Comments

Very soon I will be remodeling my kitchen.

Why yes, it does seem like just yesterday that I did the last one, but that was actually two years and one house ago! That kitchen was mostly-completed right before the pandemic started, and then finally actually-completed a year later, just before I moved out to my new home. Which is a really stupid pattern, where three times in a row I’ve put off a kitchen remodel until it became unavoidable, and then ended up moving out soon after.

I’m hoping that this will not continue the pattern!

Read more…

Bathroom followup

Comments

Wellp, now there’s water that leaks out from around the base of my toilet when I flush it.

I am guessing that the plumber didn’t replace the wax ring.

Sigh.

Bathroom: Not perfect, but Good Enough™

Comments

Today the work on the bathroom finished up. All that’s left is some minor cleanup stuff, and a few things I need to do (like installing the towel bar and hanging more of my art back up).

It isn’t perfect, but it’s good enough for now, and the stuff that needs fixing can wait, I think.

Read more…

Back in White Center

Comments

Yesterday the contractor insisted that the shower would be usable by Wednesday, so today I moved back to White Center. As usual it was the worst possible thing to happen that my cats had to endure the car for a whole 20 minutes, but now they’re back home and back to their usual shenanigans. They’re definitely happier here than in the barren condo with no view.

The bathroom is indeed coming along quite nicely. I’m skeptical that it’ll be shower-ready tomorrow, but it’s definitely getting close. The shower is almost done being tiled, and then after that it just needs grouting and hardware installation, and it seems like Thursday is a more realistic target.

Supposedly the toilet will get reinstalled today, too, so maybe I won’t have to use the outhouse anymore? We’ll see.

My house is very much a disaster area right now but at least it’s a comfortable disaster area. And it was nice to get a proper shot of espresso again. (I mean, okay, it’s not like that would have been hard to come by in freaking Capitol Hill, but it’s nice to get espresso from my own setup.)

Meanwhile, the replacement kitchen faucet arrived, and it seems in the past few months they changed the design of the sprayer head a little bit, hopefully in a way which will prevent future clogs from happening. Thankfully it’s still compatible with the old faucet, so it was just a simple swap out, and now I have a working kitchen sink with good water pressure once again.