Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Day Two

Dinner: Salads at McDonald's. (I had a grilled Asian chicken salad with low-fat ginger dressing -- 8 Weight Watcher points.) Myfanwe had a Southwest grilled chicken salad and Norbert had a grilled Caesar salad. All delicious, and all dust-free.

Kitchen progress:


They pulled up the sub-floor, which must have been pretty intense. They got the plumbing run, including the line under the flooring to behind where the refrigerator will be FOR THE ICE MAKER!


They also gave us doors. Two, to be exact. OK, maybe they only gave us 1 doorway and expanded a previously existing one, but we thought it was dramatic progress.

This is the new doorway to Norbert's suite. He's in the old maid's bedroom, which was off the kitchen, but we are walling that hall off and making it kitchen, and this was punched through from our dining room to give access to Norbert's bed and bath. We found a gorgeous door at Salvage One that matches a few of our other doors perfectly in style, except that it is heavier and thicker. It will be beautiful.


Now this doorway had always been here -- it's the doorway to our pantry. It used to have a little door on it which opened in, precluding the use of a great deal of the pantry. We took it off years ago. We had the contractor tear out the wall above the door and all of the trim, widening the doorway and making the pantry much more accessible. Plus, with the pantry window now visible, it will bring a little more light into the kitchen. We are very happy with this!

Now pay attention, Boys and Girls and Others...this is something they don't teach you in school. Apparently -- and I have this on very good authority -- 80-year-old wiring is bad. Very bad. 80-year-old wiring looks like this:
Notice the cloth wrapping. Apparently, that is very, very bad.

New wiring is very good. It is also very expensive. Very, very expensive. New wiring looks like this:
Notice there are no cloth insulators anywhere on this wire. That is very, very, very good.

We have made it through 2 days of this never-ending nightmare. I don't know how I will survive. I feel dirty all the time. That is probably because one can actually gather a layer of dust while sleeping. Everything is dirty. Everything. Mitzi is actually the clean thing in the house, and she smells undeniably of kennel. I poured cereal this morning which let off a cloud of dust.

I'm going to have to end up doing a major cleaning myself. I'm afraid my cleaning lady will quit if I ask her to help with this mess. And I really need her.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Do you have plastic dust-shields covering your bedroom door? Or maybe even two layers, like a storm door or vestibule? It might help. You don't want to breathe that dust any more than you can help it.

Leslie said...

Tamar's right. Do a Homeland Security take-off with masking tape and plastic film and make something like those plastic vertical blinds you see on the dairy case in some markets.

In any case, there *will* be dust and there *will* be dirt. As the nuns used to tell us, offer it up for a better cause. And your new kitchen is a most worthy cause.