Tearing out the kitchen

Today was tear out the kitchen day. So that's what we did. It's scary to see what is behind and under your cabinets and appliances. At one point I wanted to just move out, or at least run out, but I hung in there and we are working on getting at least two of the layers of floor up, we decided that we shouldn't mess with the bottom layer because it probably contains asbestos. The fridge is now in my craft room along with four large boxes of our food, we will have to survive with this make-shift kitchen for awhile, I foresee many meals out.

You can see in this picture below, my temporary wiring for the new canned lights in the living room. That wall is being moved out about a foot so I will put the switch in there permanently when we get the wall moved.

There are all kinds of funky wires and holes to nowhere that I will have to fix. Some of the holes in the floor and the walls are covered up with old mason jar lids.

More remodeling!

I forgot to say on my last blog that we started our remodel on Wednesday night, on Thursday is when I finished getting the carpet out and on Friday night after work I pulled all of the trim off from the doors. Then Saturday was painting and floor day. On Sunday I got the trim on the garage door and the front door and most of the baseboards down in the front room and put the furniture back in somewhat the right places. The fish tank will go back in after we are pretty much done with everything.

We are going to put crown molding up all throughout the living room, dining room and kitchen. Again, you can see Craig working away on the kitchen drawings.

On Sunday night I marked where I wanted our recessed lights, we have six of them, and on Monday I got up in the attic and put them in. Today I got back up in the attic and got them wired and working. I attached them to a dimmer switch which also has a remote control. I added a new circuit breaker to the panel because we didn't have an existing light in the living room.

Next will be the demolition of the kitchen. We will start that on Saturday. I need a couple of days to get everything packed up and ready. We also need to do a little regrouping, I feel like the house is a disaster right now.

Remodeling project

Well, we have started the remodeling projects. Carina and I started by pulling out the carpet to reveal the lovely hardwood floor underneath.

As you can see, the floor underneath was in bad shape. I had to shuffle the furniture around to get all of the carpet out.

After getting the carpet out it was time for paint. I painted the walls a color called "carmelized onion" and the ceiling is a lighter shade in the same color family. I painted over my stencil which I decided had been enjoyed long enough, time for something new.

Once I got the painting done I moved on to the floor. I am putting down a laminate maple floor. The blue stripes are just tape. Again I had to shuffle furniture around to get the floor in. You may be wondering where Craig is, well he is hard at work drawing up the specs for our kitchen cabinets and making a cut list for work. I was trying not to bother him with all of my chaos, and somehow he got most of his drawings done and they look great.

I stopped the floor at the edge of the hall. We will finish the floor on into the hall and kitchen once we get the kitchen gutted.

Ugly quilt finished!

I got the ugly quilt finished. Funny thing is, is that it isn't as ugly now that it is quilted, although far from being a prize winning quilt, it was a great quilt to practice on. It's hard to tell from the pictures, but it has dragonfly's quilted all over it. Now it's time to put quilt number two on the frame.

Quilt frame side tension fabric pieces

The pieces are about 15" long. I pinned them to the sides of the quilt and attached the clamps to the other side which has a strip of wood sewn into to them. Normally you wouldn't attach them to the quilt top, just the backing, but my backing wasn't wide enough.

PC Quilter with new Pfaff Grand Quilter

This has got to be the ugliest quilt top ever. I bought it off of eBay really cheap for trying out my new set-up. I just bought a Pfaff Grand Quilter last week to replace my super small Singer machine that I had on the frame. I am saving my pennies for the Homesteader machine, but in the meantime I will use the PGQ and it will make a great piecing machine when that day comes. So far I am really pleased with the machine and my homemade frame. I added a long door mirror between the tracks on the frame so I could see the underside of my quilts. I also sewed up some fabric to use for my side tension. I sewed in a flat piece of wood on one end for the clamps to have something to grab on to which gives it even tension all the way down the side of the quilt. Normally I wouldn't have attached them to the quilt top, but my backing is the same size as the top and since I am only using this quilt to practice on, I don't really care how it turns out.

New sewing machine on PC Quilter and Homemade Frame