Our weekend was spent finishing the drywall in the kitchen and emptying out our storage unit while we were dragging, and while it was raining. We couldn’t put a finger on why we felt so sluggish, but I’m starting to think it was the five days of straight rain that we’ve had down here. Not cool, clean, refreshing, Fall rain, but muggy, wet, Indian Summer rain. Pretty much makes you just want to curl up in a ball in the air conditioning and drink lemonade.

Regardless, we got a lot accomplished and have pretty much stayed on schedule. We wanted to have the bathroom tiles refinished, and the kitchen walls and electrical completely finished and ready to go by the end of September. Then the month of October would be for installing cabinets, countertops, and backsplash leaving the first half of November for the installation of appliances and the Hard Wood Floors Man coming to redo the floors in the kitchen. If we can keep on that schedule, we’ll be good to go.

The end of this week will mark our one month anniversary of ownership of the house, and I’d like to take a brief moment to point out the skills I have acquired in the past month. Prepare yourself to be IMPRESSED!

1. I can now remove any wall or ceiling surface down to the studs. Even with 74-year-old sheep’s wool insulation falling in my eyes.
2. I can uninstall a dishwasher, built-in microwave, and range.
3. I can remove and reattach the doors of a side-by-side refrigerator.
4. I can make $130 by selling old crap from the house off Craigslist!
5. I can rip up linoleum floor and subfloor, although my 50-year-old back is then sent into extremely painful back spasms, so I will never do that again.
6. I can haul plaster and lathe to the dumpster, man. And pick up a $12 lawn mower for my husband whilst there.
7. I could have changed out the spark plug on the aforementioned lawn mower if I had been strong enough to unscrew the previous plug which was rusted on. I knew WHAT to do.
8. I can nail blue electrical boxes to studs – very crookedly… BUT AT THE RIGHT HEIGHT!
9. I can run wire and hook up an outlet.
10. I can wield a reciprocating saw (and change its blade!), rock the tool that I refer to as the “Variable drill”, and I’m pretty sure I could use the RotoZip to cut around electrical boxes if I had to, since I’ve seen it done so frequently. But it was part of Matt’s anniversary gift, along with his new tool belt and boots, so I won’t get grabby with the little machine!
11. I can restore a 74 year old rope and pulley window to it’s original glory.
12. I can measure, cut, and install drywall. Matt even let me do my very own little piece from start to finish.
13. I can put up FibaTape (which belongs in a rap, take note my hip-hop readers).
14. I can put a toilet back together, courtesy of my father-in-law’s Handyman Helpline.
15. I can put a pedestal sink back together, also courtesy of my father-in-law’s Handyman Helpline.
16. I can blow through money at Home Depot like you’ve never seen!
17. I can paint. Oh boy, I can paint.

And later this week I will learn how to spackle and sand from the man who INVENTED spackling and sanding. I have also become quite skilled in coming home smelling like dinosaur poo and throwing a frozen pizza in the oven. I am VERY, VERY good at that. Three cheers for transferrable skills!

This entry was posted on Monday, September 21st, 2009 at 12:15 pm and is filed under Home Ownership, Kitchen Renovation, Learnyland, Marriage, Stuff I Love. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.