It's been four weeks and what do we have?

Let's play a game. Look at the two pictures and see if you can tell what is different between them. The clutter on the counter doesn't count.







Look closely.

Ready? You may have picked out the microwave above the stove. Matt, Dana and I hung it Thursday evening.

Anything else? "En-n-nt" (That's a buzzer sound, in case you can't tell) Time's up! There isn't anything else that you can see. It's a trick question. For about a week we had a beautiful kitchen as you can see in the first photo BUT no water and no electricity. The electricity was finished on Friday. The water was connected on Thursday but we had sediment blocking the flow until Saturday. Now, it all works. I cooked dinner with the stove and microwave and we are running our inaugural batch of dishes in the dishwasher as I type this. It doesn't seem real in some ways. I know Janessa asked about being able to cook on a real stove again. I have to admit that it was a bit of an adjustment to use more than one burner at the same time. And the water was hot in less that five minutes!

So this is the new kitchen. We still need to attach handles to the doors and drawers and finish the floor under the fridge and freezer. The appliance garage had to be reordered. We need to move back in. It certainly makes the kitchen much bigger. More room for bodies.

I have been warned that it won't stop with the kitchen. The rest of the house will look shabby and need to be redone. I hope not for a while. Now you all need to come visit so you can see the end result. The best part? I can put the roaster up in a cupboard and leave it there.

New Kitchen Part 3

We are beginning our 3rd week of chaos. Actually, semi-chaos. The gritty, dust-all-over-the-house, trip-over-extension-cords part is mostly over. There is still dust in odd corners and still an extension cord plugged into the freezer, but we are making progress.

We smoothed over the new wallboard with mud. Then we sanded it all down. The plastic sheeting kept the dust localized.
Then we textured all the new stuff. I finally
got the hang of it towards the end.
That was Monday, last week.


Tuesday - We took the rough edges off the texturing, primed it and painted the ceiling and the walls. We got finished about 1 am. FYI - the kitchen walls are NOT white. They are "moonlight white", a very, very, very, very light yellow.


We did find time to celebrate Dana's
birthday on Tuesday. For the first time ever, she had enough chocolate and pizza to last a lo-o-o-ng time. We were reduced to lighting one lone match and sticking it in her cake since the candles are buried in a box somewhere.







Wednesday - The cabinet guy came in and installed
cabinets. I came home from school that afternoon and the kitchen was no longer a great, big emptiness. Matt even got to help set the shelves. The cabinet guy's name is Rick. He spends his winters here, doing cabinet installations. He lives in Alaska the rest of the time. Has a 4500 sq ft custom-built log home, spent his early years working on the oil line and building homes in his off-hours, and never stops talking. A very nice gentleman, and very helpful as we make this transition to a new kitchen.








So now we have cabinets. Very beautiful cabinets. They are cleaned out and the shelves are in most of them. They have no handles yet, but we'll take care of that. And I can begin moving stuff back in. The only problem is . . . I don't know where to put things. The whole layout is different.


Monday, they installed the countertop. It all fits together, the paint, the cabinets, the countertop, and the floor tile.



We ordered the stove, microwave/vent, and the dishwasher last night and they will be delivered Friday. Then we get to assemble it all. Lots of details to take care of, but we're on the downhill side of events. Wow!

New Kitchen Part Two

We had a special visit this week while we're under construction. Lynn and Riley dropped by. They came to Casa Grande to spend a few days with Grandma and Grandad Gibson. Riley warmed up when we shared gold fish crackers. He discovered the fact that he could go around the hall and kitchen in a circle. The only thing preventing him from running that circle, like his cousins, was the wallboard on the kitchen floor, which he couldn't walk over.

We finished taking down the soffits around the kitchen. I guess I should say that Dana and Matt took down the soffits. The wood still looks new and is good and solid. I look at it and wonder what we could use it for. I really don't want to take it to the dump.

While Matt worked on the soffit over the refridgerator, Dana and I took out the rest of the cabinets and the sink. The electrician needed an open area to run wiring and put in plugs, etc.

Rusty Riggs is our general contractor, head honcho, and mentor. He was kind enough to stay till midnight on Friday, helping us with the taping and mudding of the new wallboard and building an extension for the ductwork.

So here we are. Soffits all gone. New walboard up. Outlets and plugs in place. We're ready to paper and mud. We finished the first coat about 2:45 am Saturday, set the blower, and fell into bed by 3 am.

We spent Saturday morning catching up on chores and waiting for the mud to dry. Late that afternoon, we began to sand. We got a lot of tips from people when we were getting ready for this project and the best one, so far, was to close off the area when we worked with the wallboard. We duct taped plastic along the ceiling between the family room and the kitchen and closed off the living room door. It was a good thing, too. That dust went everywhere. Our hair and clothing and faces were covered in it. We borrowed a shopvac to clean it up, but there's still dust in odd places. We got the second layer of mud up and tomorrow, Monday, we texture the new stuff.

Here is the old kitchen. We need to sort out whatever we can recycle and take the rest to the city dump. I told Dad he couldn't turn the kitchen sink into a planter in the front yard.

One comment. When we started into this and discussed what would happen and how we would deal with the disruption, my original thought was, "This will be easy. It will be just like camping." No, it's not! Camping works because you're not doing anything else. This situation involves juggling work and other activities with the construction stuff and trying to figure out what to eat that isn't take-out or sandwiches all the time. But, we are FLEXIBLE!!!!!

New Kitchen Day 1

Well . . . it's started! I know, I know. We've talked about it for such a lo-o-ong time, but this is for real. I have pictures! So here goes. No comments about the clutter. It took days to go through all the cupboards. We are clearing things for the electrician who will be here tomorrow morning - 7:30 am to rewire for the new stove, the dishwasher, the disposal, the undercabinet lights, and the overheads. Take a deep breath and say good-bye to most of what you remember about the family kitchen.

Before

Now we've gone through ALL the cabinets (more about that later) and we are ready to remove, demolish, alter, modify. What other verbs would be appropriate?

Matt began by removing the doors. This made it easier to see where things were screwed together.

Then we pried the frames from the soffit.

Once we did one side, we then did the same to the other side.

The next step was to remove the front wallboard all the way around the soffit so

the electrician can see where the wiring comes down from the ceiling. Matt got pretty slick at taking the wallboard down.

Imagine our surprise (not) when we opened it up and the insulation was sitting there. We will have to remove the entire soffit before they will be able to put in the new cabinets. Also imagine our surprise (for real) when we discovered trails in the insulation. Remember the mouse problem we had years ago?

After taking down the upper cabinets, we took out the stove. The dark stain in the right-hand corner is scorch marks?!!!! Don't know when. I do know it wasn't there when the stove was put in. That might explain why the breaker popped.

Dana finally got her chance to wield a sledge hammer.

I think all the renovation shows just fed this desire to destroy something with blunt force. After we took off the countertop, Dana and Matt took a sledge to the cabinet. What fun!

Right Now This Evening! This is what we have. It still seems unreal, but, one thing I know for sure, there's no way to put it back the way it was. We can only go forward!

Kitchen remodeling by the numbers - Part 1

• 18 water bottles - found in the corner cabinet
• 6 kinds of hot sauce - from the cooking spice cabinet
• 2 bottles of bubbles - I don't know where they were hidden. They just appeared.
• 1 unopened package of raisins - expiration date 2006
• 8 half-eaten packages of crackers from the cereal cupboard
• 1 fun-size box of Fiber 1 cereal - unopened. Wonder why?
• 13 boxes of kitchen gear and assorted paraphanalia
• 4 BIG boxes of stuff for DI

We did keep the Barney bowl and the yellow bowls but not the sippy bowls or all the chipped plates.

The new cabinets are supposed to arrive next Monday. We'll see what happens. Definitely interesting times.

Christmas really happened!

It's only a week and a half ago that the last grandchildren and parent left, but it seems longer and shorter depending. Christmas was a wonderful two-week collection of family, food, and fun. Lots of laughter, teasing, games and catching up.

Kristy, Katelyn and Josh arrived Dec 18. I finished up school, Dana worked on her room and we were all involved in helping Grandad with Grandma. Grandma (Lee) broke her ankle Dec 17 and required help moving between chair, wheelchair, and bedroom. Peter arrived Sunday, Dec 21. We did find time to make tamales on Monday with Grandad. Dana's room was finished Tuesday, just in time for Craig, Janessa, Grace and Abby. Craig & Janessa let us know that Craig Jr. will arrive in May. We're excited about that. The more the merrier. Jeff arrived Tuesday evening, just behind the storms that swept through Utah and northern AZ.

We did a pit cook on Wednesday. We also helped move grandparents into an assisted living home while Grandma's ankle heals. The "boys" were great about moving furniture and other essentials. I got to Christmas shop and wrap.


Katie, Michael, Jacob and Rachel arrived Wednesday evening. The luminarios were lit, the outside lights were on and the pile under the tree was growing. We had EVERYONE home for about 20 hours. It was a wonderful, noisy houseful.

Stockings were hung. Christmas jammies were opened. More presents were wrapped. Lots of Mario Cart and computer games.


Christmas morning began about 7pm as small voices began to sound. Stockings first. What treasures for little ones. Then the tree and the ocean of presents under it. We started out slow, watching each present being opened. That gradually changed. Uncle Matt was kind enough to find presents for the grandchildren. The adults were content to watch the children open their presents. They got to their gifts after the children were through and settled playing. One of the simplest gifts that was the most appreciated was Rachel's box of kleenex. Her face was sheer joy as she got to pull out the tissues and no one stopped her.



We took family photos this year, with the help of Matt's tripod and the timer on Mom's camera. Not too bad.


Here's the grandchildren. Won't be six for long with Katie's baby due in March and Janessa's in May.


Kristy and Peter took their small ones off to Idaho for Will's wedding Christmas afternoon. We celebrated Craig's 30th birthday on Friday with a steak fry. Lots of steak and potato cake. Lots of steak sandwiches for the next week. One very intense Uno session. Great fun.


Craig and family left Saturday. Michael flew back to Ohio on Sunday. Jeff stayed until Tuesday. He and Matt worked on projects for Dad, one of which was setting up a board for Dad's train set. Dad and Jacob spent most of Tuesday and Wednesday playing with the trains and eating oranges. We did build gingerbread houses with Jacob and Rachel. Katie and kids left Wednesday evening and we were suddenly back to just four of us. Wow!


It was a wonderful time. It was long anticipated and I believe the reality lived up to the expectations. Everyone was willing to share bedrooms, bathrooms, car seats, and vehicles. We are very blessed and grateful for family. My only regret is that we can't do this more often. Every two or three years seems too long to wait.

Merry Christmas

Happy New Year!

I love a parade!

Grandad and Matt have all the fun! They got to ride on a float in the Junior Parada in Florence last Saturday. They got to wear hats, bandanas, and wave at the crowd. Matt got the best job. He got to throw candy to the crowd. Can't beat that.

Check these two handsome dudes out. Make sure you catch the sign. Grandad was the guest of honor for the CAC float.

Does it bring back memories? Check out the Shriners cars.

If you recall, the parade lasts all of fifteen minutes. But it's fun and nobody is taking themselves seriously.

Messiah spirit

It has happened once again. At least once during all the practices for our community presentation of the Messiah, the Spirit bears witness that the words we are singing are true. It's never with the same song and never at the same time, but you can count on having the experience sometime.

It is a testimony to me of the power of music and the inspiration Handel enjoyed as he created this series of moving pieces.