Maintenance time

We’ve lived in the house for a year now. Hard to believe. The phase one remodeling is almost done. Just waiting on the counter, tiling and plumbing for the wet bar and the rest of the light switch and wall plate replacements. So I guess it shouldn’t be a shock to have the first major maintenance activity. We’ll see how prudent my decision to self-insure instead of renewing the homeowner’s warranty turns out to be. 

The house has two refrigerated air units (for those of you in parts of the country where there are no swamp coolers, that is an air conditioner). One cools the front half of the house (living room, dining room, kitchen) and the other cools the bedrooms, offices and library. The second one has at least a bad motor. The repairman took it away today so he can get a new one when the suppliers are open on Monday.

Fortunately my office ceiling fan is installed and the bedroom already had a ceiling fan. Cindy’s office adjoins her sewing room which is an enclosed porch with a window unit, so her office gets some cooling, too. The weather forecast is for highs in the low to mid 90s, cooler than usual, so it shouldn’t be bad. Updates on the repairs in a couple days.

Almost a year…

It’s hard to believe it is almost a year since we moved into the house. Recently, it has really begun to feel like home. We’ve even started to entertain again. Sarah and her friend Mantissa cooked Father’s Day dinner for her dad, Noah, Gabe, Catherine and their parents and us. It was lovely to have a house full of people again. We are approaching the point where I am starting to think about house concerts again. I’ve become at home in the kitchen and have done enough there to have gotten back into my routines. We are very happy with how it turned out. It is bright and as spacious as a small kitchen can be, comfortable to work in and, with the breakfast nook, roomy enough to visit with people while you are cooking. 

Out of the boxes!

This story really starts over a year ago when we were packing for the move to New Mexico. Our house in Colorado Springs sold in 6 days after we showed it (Thank you, Lisa!), instead of 6 months, which we were expecting. As a result, packing happened very fast. Boxes were everywhere and Sarah and I were still packing when the movers arrived to start loading.

We had a contract on our house in Las Cruces but we were moving at the end of May and the closing on the house was set for the end of June. We would be in a rental house for all of June. So we planned to take some critical things with us in the van and everything else would go to the movers to be stored until we were moved in to our permanent home.

That plan worked perfectly except for one box. This box had various useful papers related to projects I was working on and my binder of software CDs. It was to go with us so I would have it right away when we arrived. It was in my office and I thought it was marked and set aside from all of the stacks of boxes there. Somehow the movers loaded it with everything else. I noticed it was gone quite a while later, past hope of retrieving it.

Since the overall remodeling included tiling almost all of the floors in the house, all of the boxes that did not need to be in a temperature controlled area went to the garage. So it was there somewhere amongst all the stacks of boxes. I decided it was finally time to find it, especially since I needed to load software onto a new computer. Cindy also wanted to get the rest of the kitchen stuff, clothing and bedding unpacked and we needed to find a computer monitor for the guest computer.

Three weeks ago, I started my pass of the boxes. Most of the boxes got labeled with what room they came from but not much more. I really had to open each one and decide whether it was something to bring in for Cindy to unpack or for me to check to see if it was THE box. I didn’t do anything the weekend of May 20th since I was in Santa Fe but I started back up as soon as I got back. By last weekend, I had made it through every box in the garage and had several boxes to check. Yesterday, I found that THE box was indeed among the ones I had brought in.

It may seem silly, but finding that box and getting the new computer fully set up is one more step towards feeling like we are starting to get settled. Of course, Cindy’s efforts on the kitchen and clothing haven’t hurt either as various treasures and missed items have surfaced.

We are also making some progress in the purge that didn’t happen before the move. Some things have gone to the local Freecycle Network™ group and yesterday we took six boxes of clothing and bedding to La Casa, the local shelter for battered women.

Hooray for empty boxes!

More than the Kitchen Sink!

The latest activity in the kitchen was the realization of Cindy’s design for the tile backsplash.

Featuring handpainted custom tiles with a rose motif reminiscent of the Charles Rennie Mackintosh rose,

it sets off the space over the sink.

The rose and stem motif is repeated at the ends of the backsplash.

I made a salad in the kitchen!

Today marked a major milestone. I made dinner in the kitchen, using most of the appliances and utilities of the kitchen. Yesterday I went shopping and put the ingredients for the salad in the new refrigerator. Today, I used the oven to bake the chicken for the salad. I washed vegetables in the sink, chopped them on a cutting board on the counter and served the salad in a bowl from a cupboard! I have been cooking breakfast on the stove, so it wasn’t the first meal cooked in the kitchen but it was our first sit down dinner prepared in the kitchen since October, 2006. Pictures to follow. Suddenly the house feels much more like home!

Today is countertop day!

Fast-forward to today, the counters are being installed.
We chose Dupont™ Zodiaq® for the counters because it is the most resistant to stains, heat, scratching and all the things that can happen to a countertop. We picked the speckled green color based on a 2″ square sample and we expected to like it. It turned out just perfect now that one of the big pieces is in place. The light green parts are a perfect match to the green of the floor tile. The color sets off the warmth of the wood cabinets as well. Most exciting times!

Dining Room Floor is Tiled

The dining room floor actually got tiled a few days ago. It is waiting to be grouted, along with several other spots that have been tiled.

The steps to the living room are in progress. We are converting 4 unequal, shallow steps to 3 steps all the same size. The concrete has been poured to make the 3 steps but they still have to be tiled.

Merry Christmas

Today is not a working day except to clear out a couple boxes from the entryway and some cupboards and the old stove from the breakfast nook in preparation for tiling. Tiling the dining room is scheduled to start tomorrow! Merry Christmas to all!

Kitchen cabinets

We went to visit the new kitchen cabinets yesterday at Rincón Woodworks. They look wonderful, as promised and expected. They are almost done but installation has to wait on tiling the kitchen and (oops!) installation of the gas line for the stove. In the press of getting the kitchen ready, we somehow forgot to have a gas line run for the stove. So tomorrow starts the search for the plumber to do that.

Progress is measured…

in big things and little things. The big things are milestones like moving to rooms other than the living room. Cindy moved into her office in October. We moved into the master bedroom in early November. Just this past weekend, I moved into my office. Each of these moves required the electrical work to be done, drywall to be repaired after the electrician finished running wires, texturing and painting and then tiling the floors.

Most of the drywall and painting for this phase is done. Tiling in the dining room, kitchen, pantry and laundry room are next. And then we get the kitchen back!