Day: February 25, 2010

Our cabinet guy arrived about 9:30 this morning and we bombarded him with problems right off the bat.

I mentioned that the tile guy, erhm, sort of tiled our floor crooked, right? Well, the cabinet guy will now have to compensate for that when he puts the cabinets in so that they line up with the grout line.

I don’t think he was too happy about that.

Then he told us that the pipes that Kevin shortened (Kevin chopped the shut-off valves off because they were leaking and it would be easier on the cabinet guy to have them off so he wouldn’t have to knock a huge hole out of the back to make room for the plumbing) were too short – he needed to add another length of pipe to it. So Kevin had an unexpected project that he needed to get done right away and he wasn’t too happy about that because he needed to get back to work, but you know, it is what it is.

Then, the cabinet guy called me in to tell me that the floor was sloped on the opposite wall (naturally) and that that would affect how we put in the back splash. (He just wanted to tell me so we didn’t blame him later).

And in the middle of all of this, Kevin had to shut off the water so he could fix the pipes (I was doing dishes – fun) and I ended up fielding two phone calls at the same time – one from our new appliance guy and one from the charity that we’ve asked to come by and get our old appliances.

I have felt like a juggler living in a fun house today – juggling all sorts of things at the same time and dealing with a crooked house that is giving us nothing but issues, issues, ISSUES!

*SIGH*

I’m so glad this project is nearly finished – I’m sure you’ll be glad, too. 😀

However, I peeked at the work done so far and OMG, I have to tell you, I am LOVING THE CABINETS!!! And I am totally digging the doors. I can’t wait to show you guys. (I’ll take before and after pictures soon.)

Kevin’s dad came over to take a look at our floor last night. We had gone out for some Chinese food and when we returned, he was busy studying our new floor. He’s actually built some houses before so he knows what he’s talking about and is pretty experienced in fixing problems. (Not that that implies he caused problems when he built houses, only that he has experience … oh never mind).

He told us the tile issue wasn’t the worst he’s ever seen (he was probably being nice), but he gave Kevin some ideas on how “they” (I think it made Kevin feel better that his dad was willing to help him out) could fix it. I’m so grateful that J came over because he seemed to calm Kevin down quite a bit.

Kevin doesn’t get upset very often, but when he does, it’s not pretty.

As the tweet above says, we’re pretty sure that whoever built this house was drunk at the time because wow, our kitchen is OFF. It’s off by two inches on one wall and the floor slopes downward on the other wall. So either this old house has done some serious settling or someone had one too many “refreshments” when they were measuring.

Either way, it’s been frustrating to try and work around. All I know is, I don’t know what I would have done without Kevin and his dad – if it had just been me dealing with this issue (HA! Yeah right, I would have moved than deal with a remodeling project like this on my own), I don’t think I could have handled it.

That makes me sound weak, let me rephrase that – I COULD have handled it, but I’d most likely be 10 pounds lighter from the stress if I had.

On second thought, maybe I should take the initiative and take control of this project – I could stand to lose ten pounds.

Anyway, between manipulating the cabinets and fudging the trim a bit, I think we can make this work. No one will be the wiser – well, except for the entire Internet, but you know what I mean.

The big stuff on this project is nearly over. Our new appliances will be delivered tomorrow and once we have our old appliances hauled off, Kevin will be able to use his side of the garage again.

I’m REALLY ready to have my house back. I’m getting pretty tired of having all of these strange men running around. Oh wait, we still have the counter top guys coming in to measure their template – I forgot about them. We’ll be using our old counter top (Kevin made them so we were able to salvage them) in the meantime.

But after THAT, things should slowly start getting back to normal. We plan on painting and doing the back splash last and I can’t wait to “tweak” things a bit and make them look pretty. I’m planning on throwing out a lot of junk and cleaning things up a bit so everything that goes into our new cabinets will be stuff that we actually need and use.

After being in this house for almost 18 years – we have a LOT of crap to get rid of.