Yes children, Math skills are important, even for delivery men.

First the good news! There is a part of the kitchen that is for all intents and purposes done! And it does look purty.


And then the mostly good news, which is that the new new ovens are in and they work! The mostly is because the delivery was irritating to say the least. First the truck arrives with only 2 items when they were supposed to have said 2 items plus 5 cover panels without which we cannot finish the kitchen. This was annoying, but not entirely unexpected.

More annoying was that the men then insisted that they were not supposed to be picking anything up. They swore blind that their packing slip said deliver 2 items and they were not going to load anything into their truck. The nice delivery man, who was sadly only the assistant, tried to convince the driver to call in to double check and was told he would be left behind if he didn't get in the truck. Nice.

So I signed their stupid packing slip and off they went. About 30 secs after the door had shut and Jon had gone back upstairs to finish the teleconference he was running, I decided to peruse said packing slip as I really couldn't believe that they would have messed up the picking things up again. Not to mention I was very inconvenienced by the two sets of double ovens hogging up all the space in my kitchen.

Well the packing slip had about 6 items on it, but four of them had P/U in one column where the other two were blank. And some of them had 1 in the quantity column while some had -1 and even -2. Hmmmm. What did P/U mean. I looked higher up on the slip and found a note in all caps: PICK UP ITEMS AT THIS ADDRESS.

I guess P/U must mean Pick/Up. So why the negative numbers? Ah well they were with all the things marked Pick/Up. So I guess -2 means you need to pick up 2 Mr. Delivery Dingbat. You know, the opposite of 1 meaning drop one off. I figured this all out in about a minute and then called the number on the slip for people with delivery troubles. I called the delivery people directly and not Ikea this time. I asked them to please get the driver to turn the truck around and pick up the stuff we do not need hanging out in our garage!!!!

About 20 minutes later the nasty driver and nice assistant were back. Nasty driver was NOT happy, but nice assistant was still nice. The extra stuff is now gone. The new ovens are in. A few calls to various people and it appears that the cover panels that were supposed to be delivered today (and were not on the packing slip) are in some kind of order limbo. Some computers show them as ordered and ready for delivery. Some computers show no order at all. And some computers show that they have been delivered, though never ordered or present in the warehouse. Hopefully this will all get sorted soon.

Still very happy with my kitchen and would definitely do Ikea again, but I would NEVER EVER get anything delivered from Ikea ever again. The drive is well worth it.

And remember boys and girls, understanding the concept of negative numbers is important, even if you don't plan on pursuing a PhD in theoretical math.

The Ovens are going Back

After a very irritating visit by a stressed out (and way late) repairman, it has been determined that the ovens must go back. First he questioned whether they had been installed correctly, ie, was I sure that a live wire hadn't been put together with the ground. Hmm let's see, it turns on, but one digital control doesn't work, so yes I think it is not short circuiting...

Then he questioned whether it really was a Whirlpool oven because he didn't recognise the doors, which are uniquely designed for Ikea. I had to show him the install guide. Then he fiddled around and showed that he could heat both ovens up as long as he set the left oven to be identical to an already set right oven and then said, "Well really all you have is a blank space where you should have a number or letter." Hmmmm, yes and it is a brand new $1500 set of ovens (no we didn't pay that much, but that is the going retail price).

Then he said he couldn't really check anything without someone else to help him take the ovens out the of cabinet. So I pointed out that Jon would have been here if he hadn't been 4 hours late for his arranged, 4 hour long, arrival window.

Final conclusion, we would have to wait 7-10 days until he could get back out with someone else to fix it. So we are not having him fix it, we will get Ikea to replace it with another one.

In the meantime no pictures, because nothing has changed on the outside. I am just putting things away so working hard every day, but nothing to see really. The rest of the flooring should arrive on Weds. We should be mostly unpacked back into the kitchen by Monday, so we really are looking at the end soon. And I must say that I love my cooktop and having a working sink and dishwasher is a very very nice state of being.

Good News, Bad News

First the good news. The Electrician was here today! We can now turn on the kitchen lights from the hallway. Yay!

He also put in a low profile switch by the broom closet and, with that and the new doorknob, the door could open all the way and it all worked! It took some maneuvering to figure out how best to fit the vacuum cleaner into it's new home, but I got there in the end. Can't wait to get some hooks to hang the broom and mop on.




Soon there will be a place to hang the iron above the vacuum slider thingie and the ironing board will go in the back and everything will be hidden away so beautifully.....
















And now the bad news. The left oven control panel doesn't work.

We installed the ovens and the electrician hooked everything up, but when we turned on the power we noticed something peculiar. On the left side, the oven control panel had a P, while on the right it showed a PF.

Then I tried to set the clocks. The instructions said to hold down the enter button until the clock flashed 12:00. Well after 45 seconds of pushing the left enter button I gave up and tried the right, which worked fine. Setting either clock will automatically set both so we looked over to the left and it said: 1: 4. Hmmmmm

So I had a more thorough read of the manual and it turns out that both sides should have read PF when we turned on the power. The left side should also have been able to set the clock and, after having set the clock on the right side and hitting enter, should not have allowed us at that point to change the time when we turned the dial on the left, but it did.

Major bummer. We called out to Whirlpool, who manufactures these ovens for Ikea, and manage the warranty, and they are sending someone out to fix it on Friday. If they have to cut into anything in order to fix it, they will have a major fight on their hands because I will expect them to replace it at that point, since we have never done anything other than turn it on. I refuse to have a brand new oven with replacement parts jerry rigged in it, before I even get to see if the thing preheats. In the meantime it looks pretty, if you ignore the P/PF mismatch, and we will be moving on to the dishwasher install when Jon finishes work for the day.

Starting the Finishing Details

We put on all the doors we had in the garage. We are still waiting for the doors for the cabinet over fridge. It was part of the big Ikea snafu way back in April. They are taking very good care of us, but we have a little bit of time to go before all the backordered stuff arrives at our house.


You might notice that we have handles on the doors now as well. We discovered that it is very hard to open these doors when there are no handles on them.








We also cut the surround for the ovens and put that up.


In the corner by the door there is a tall cabinet that is the new broom/vacuum cupboard. Unfortunately to have the door open in the sensible manner meant that it would foul on the doorknob to the garage. We could have changed the door so it opened on the other side, but that would have been a huge pain.

So I went online and searched for low profile door handles and found this lovely thing. It doesn't even stick out as far as the door frame and opens very easily when you pull it or push it, depending on which way you are opening the door. It fits into the existing doorknob cutout and arrived today. Exciting! Please ignore the sawdust all over it.

It starting to look like an actual Kitchen!

It's starting to look more like a kitchen. We have actually cooked and washed dishes inside the last two nights. Today I even got to put the silverware away in a silverware drawer as soon as it was dried!

For those not in the know, our old kitchen had no drawer that really worked as a silverware drawer so all the forks etc... were in cups hanging off the side of the countertops over by the table.

We got all the slide out shelves into the pantries tonight. I have even started migrating food over from the dining and living rooms back into the kitchen. You can see the tea up in the corner with all of my Christmas cookie tins. There is so much room now!

The electrician should be coming on Tuesday and so by that night we should have our ovens, dishwasher and under cabinet lighting all working. And we will be able to turn the kitchen lights on and off from the hall!! Currently you have to walk through the kitchen to get to the lights, so this will be a big improvement.

I am hoping to have unpacked back into the kitchen pretty much completely by Sunday. We won't be done yet because we are still waiting for some back ordered door front and cover panels from Ikea and for the back corner of flooring that I had to order when we ran out.

While we are waiting for that we can start looking at and deciding on tile for the backsplash and for the wall by the table.

Too tired to write

But here are some photos especially for people with new sinks who have never posted a single photo of them, but complain a lot about other people being too slow to post pictures of their new sinks.

Are you tired?

Getting there slowly, but surely

I haven't updated for a while because we got bogged down in regular life and the kitchen (sob) had to be put aside for almost a week.

First, we had the cub scout family camp last weekend, our first with Jon as Cubmaster. Then after we had all come home exhausted, Jon had to go out of town on Monday for work and didn't get back until late Tuesday night.

Yesterday was tense, but the counters are now in. They have been oiled and sanded twice. They need to be done again every other day for a week and then every third day for a month or two, until they don't soak up any more oil. But all of that is irrelevant. What matters is that the sink and cooktop can now go in. We might even be able to cook dinner on the cooktop tonight and then wash dishes in the kitchen sink instead of the bathroom sink!

Jon built the oven cabinet (and adjacent broom closet and pantry) already. They need feet and to be attached to the wall. Then, as soon as the electrician can get here, we will have ovens and a working dishwasher. He can't come fast enough. If we are very very lucky, he will come tomorrow, but I don't think we are that lucky. In the, meantime this weekend, we will be able to finish the U; put in all the drawers and dividers and maybe even start unpacking the boxes in the living room back into the kitchen. One can always dream.......

A little bit at a time.

The peninsula is in, with spacers to make room for some sockets on the back (kitchen table) side.
And some pictures of the U so you can all get a sense of the space. The stacked boxes of drawer inserts are where the dishwasher will go.

And yes, we will have a single bowl sink now. I am very excited about it. It is far bigger than either of our old sink bowls and I have never found much use for two bowls that a colander couldn't fix. Hopefully now we will be less likely to leave stacked clean dishes in the sink!

Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

No time to type right now. We got the room painted on Sat and the floor mostly down, but discovered on Sunday that I hadn't ordered enough floor tiles, ugh, and that I was coming down with a nasty bug, double ugh. So Sunday and today I mostly lay in bed and shivered and came downstairs when Jon needed help with eyeballing something and then crawled back upstairs and collapsed again.

Jon did get a lot done though and I will order more tile tomorrow, hopefully if I can't get the same color lots, the difference won't be too obvious. The kids watched a lot of tv and Simon spent most of today naked since I managed to get him to take off his pjs before I collapsed, but he resisted putting on any clothes by himself. It was a little bit Lord of the Flies in the playroom. Still Jon has to get back to work tomorrow and therefore so do I.

Wish we had a sink first, but them's the breaks.

We have a room again!

For an entire day two very dedicated men hung sheetrock, taped, mudded, and did wonderful things and we have a room again!




Tomorrow morning while we are at the Camelot Graduation they will come back and finish sanding. Then when we get back we will prime and paint and if we are very very quick we might have a floor laid by the time we go to bed. I think that is a bit of a stretch. I will settle for primed and painted and ready to go on Sunday.

Actually Moving forward

The plumbers finally came!!


Then they left all of their trash, except for the copper pipes. That definitely gets filed under very very irritating. We moved all the trash out onto the driveway and called the boss plumber man about it. He said it would get taken care of. Two days and counting waiting for them to show up (all while heading into a holiday weekend), but it's all okay because we haven't paid them yet. Payment will occur upon trash pickup....

In the meantime, during those two days, the electrician came and took down more sheetrock and moved all the wiring we needed moved. We will now be able to turn the kitchen lights on and off from the hall!

We now have two guys in there hanging sheetrock at lightning speeds. They say they will be done with the mudding and everything by tonight, so tomorrow after swim lessons and Camelot graduation, we will be able to paint and maybe even begin laying the floor. Sunday (only a week behind schedule!) we should have the floor laid and be ready to actually start installing the kitchen. It can't come fast enough.

I am a little scared of how much all this extra sheetrock hanging is going to cost us. We have the plumbing price already and it could still come within the extras budget, but fingers are definitely crossed.

La La La and some thumb twiddling

So here we are, almost a full week in and we are pretty much no further along than we were Friday morning. The ceiling is mostly scraped and the mudding of the existing sheetrock has begun, but that is about it.

With all that time on our hands, Jon was starting to go a bit nutty so I looked up installation of our floors and discovered that we do have some work to do there. So Jon was under the house this afternoon shimming the underflooring and getting rid of the big sag in the middle. It's almost all flat now! Next we are going to sand and lay some thicker roofing felt down on the low spot we couldn't raise and then use thinner roofing felt as an underlayment for the whole thing and (fingers crossed) by the time we have done all that, the plumber will have rerouted the pesky pipes and John the friendly ceiling guy will have fixed up all the sheet rock and we will be ready to paint and lay the floor.

The plumber never called today so I guess he couldn't make it. Really hoping he can get it all done tomorrow. The fridge is being delivered Friday and I would so love to have the floor down by then, or at the very least have finished painting!

On the funnier side, we noticed on Sat that the dryer was venting into the kitchen ceiling space. Turns out that the vent wasn't attached to the pipe in the ceiling space, which was correspondingly FULL of dryer lint. All fixed now and for the first time you can smell the laundry outside when the dryer is on. Who knows how long that has been going on.

So there are two postives to everything moving so slowly. We have found and fixed a dryer problem and had time to figure out how to flatten the floor in the kitchen pretty cheaply. Whoo Hoo.

I'm done with the delays now though thanks. Time to move forward.

And the delays begin.

The plumber came around today and there is a financially feasible fix to our pipe problem. It does involve Jon doing some reframing in the load bearing wall, but nothing he can't handle. The bigger problem is that we can't get started on the main kitchen fun stuff until we lay the floor.

We can't lay the floor until we paint the ceiling.

We can't paint the ceiling until it is all sheetrocked and mudded and sanded.

The ceiling, sheetrocking, mudding guy can't do his thing until the plumber is done messing with the walls.

And the plumber can't begin work until Tuesday next week...............

So now instead of a weekend beavering away, we have a weekend with no plans and a big empty room that we can't work on. Talk about antsy making.

Still the pool is open. There is a Fiber Festival on this weekend. There is much dishwashing to do. I'm sure we will fill the time. And I will post more pictures as soon as there is a change to document. At least the flooring arrived today. It is gorgeous! I can't wait to get it installed.

We frogged the Kitchen!

Rip it! Rip it!

Yes the kitchen is looking a lot emptier now. The tile is gone. The fridge is out on the deck. All the horrible useless cabinets have been hauled away. Whoo Hoo!

There must, of course, in every complete redo, be a large problem that can't be seen until you really get going. We found ours.
















Here you can see that the boxed in top 10-15 inches of the kitchen was not boxed in for cosmetic purposes. So we are having a plumber come out tomorrow to hopefully tell us how we can put these pipes back where they belong, in the ceiling space or the wall cavity and OUT of my kitchen!!!


The other pipe that must be moved is the drain by the hood vent. Sadly the new hood needs to have a vent right where that drain goes. So we might have to rip out the sheet rock below so we can move that pipe a little to the left or right. Hopefully the plumber will have a good idea (and price!) and we can get quickly back to getting the kitchen ready to install into.

In the meantime we ate yummy crockpot chicken with rice cooker rice and peas. Cooking is easy. I'm not so convinced about the crampground style dishwashing using the outdoor tap. We might switch to compostable plates in a day or two. Certainly if the plumbing delays cause more than a week without a sink, I will need to find a happier way to do the dishes.

Simon's Bike Makes a Picture

We had a couple of days of hard rain which floods our front path. Simon had left his bike in front of the house for the duration and apparently it protected the dirt underneath it from washing away. When we emerged after the rains had gone and moved the bike, look what we found!
What should we call it? A dirt shadow? Rain portrait? Certainly cool.

Tomorrow is the big day.

Men are coming to rip out our old kitchen. I am hoping so very much that my plan for the new kitchen is as much more space efficient than the old one as I planned it to be. How nice it would be to have less crap forced to hang out on the counters all the time.

So to kick us off here are some pictures of the old not so functioning kitchen as I started to pack it up and some pictures of it ready to be destroyed and carted out the back door. Enjoy.

A New Kitchen, A New Start

Yes, it has been almost two years since I last posted anything to this blog. That last move from Princeton back to North Carolina, encompassing, as it did, a bout of homelessness (yay to the friends who let us live with them briefly) evicting tenants for non payment of rent, retaking a really worse for wear home, followed by difficult school years for everyone, epipen use with attendant ER visits, thyroid malfunctions with accompanying 25 lb (in 3 months!!) weight gain, all conspired to do me in.

To paraphrase Thumper, why say anything when there is nothing good to say?

Thankfully I believe that phase of our lives is finally passing. I think we have started to move into a more normal level of downs and ups, lice not withstanding, and now we are about to embark or our biggest home improvement project so far, installing a new kitchen. So it is seems like a good time to restart this project and let people know that it isn't always bad stuff that happens to us.

A Little History:

My current kitchen is beautiful. It has custom built gorgeous cabinets, a white ceramic tile floor and a granite effect Corian countertop and sink. People often comment on how nice it looks and it truly does. Sadly whoever designed it and had it so handsomely constructed did not cook, was not interested in cooking and clearly never intended for the kitchen to be anything other than a gorgeous accoutrement for the house. It is the epitome of form over function. I cannot express how deeply I detest my beautiful kitchen.

I have fantasized about redoing it for years, since we bought the house and I first tried to put my stuff away and realized that I had had more storage capacity in my tiny townhouse kitchen. I dreamed about how I would redesign it while we were living in another country and it was unclear that I would ever actually return. Then about 3 weeks ago we were buying cabinets at Ikea for the newly retiled kids' bathroom when I noticed the kitchen sale going on until May 2. 20% off your entire purchase if you buy three appliances from Ikea. 20% off! We might be able to do it!

You see, one of the problems with doing the kitchen is that we can't just change the cabinets. The current tile (yes the one with deep dirt and scum collecting grout lines) is only tiled up to the cabinets so any change in them requires redoing the floor as well. That has stymied us in the past, but with such a deep discount maybe we could afford the floor as well! But we only had a month to plan. A month!

So off I went into deep obsession. Jon (barely) managed to put up with me and now, a mere three weeks later, and after discovering another discount (the 15% energy star rebate from NC for the new fridge and dishwasher), we have most of a new kitchen sitting in boxes in the garage. A new fridge has been purchased and will be delivered in late May. I am ordering a new (induction!) cooktop next week and sometime after Willa's birthday in May demolition will begin.

We are paying someone else to do that and to get the room back to a smooth shell. Then we will lay the new Marmoleum Click checkboard floor and do the rest ourselves. I will post some before pictures in the next few weeks in between getting ready for the big birthday (one decade!) and will try to keep everyone posted on our kitchen goings on.

Welcome back everyone!