Bling for the Kitchen

I am not good at home maintenance. Most of the time I just tolerate a problem until I am forced to fix. Sometimes I will even have a party to make me solve a problem - such as a deep cleaning of the house. My old faucet probably 20-30+ years old had a stripped out cold water handle. It would spin around but not turn on the cold water. Now most normal people would by a new handle, a new faucet or something to solve that problem. What did I do? Put a small plastic cup over the handle so people would know that that handle didn't work. As the plumber today said "Cold water is overrated anyway." He was joking, of course. How long did I tolerate the no cold water in the kitchen? 5-6 months or more. Really ridiculous, I know.

What made me finally deal with the problem? The downstairs toilet sprung a serious leak so that absolutely had to be fixed especially with my brother and his friends using the downstairs shop to make cabinets for me. In other words, the plumber had to come out so I might as well fix the kitchen faucet as well.

I actually had this replacement Moen faucet for quite a while, but I wasn't confident enough to put it in. And I figured why replace it when you're going to tear out the kitchen anyway? Just for a little overrated cold water.

After the plumber installed the faucet, he said, "It's a little bling for your kitchen." You would not believe how much better it looks. And cold water - it is NOT overrated. It is nice.

The toilet from downstairs was from 1956 - a serious water guzzler. I didn't replace it sooner for exactly the same reason I didn't replace the faucet - that bathroom is going to be gutted. But it is nice to have a new functional low-flow toilet. I searched all over the internet for efficient, reliable toilets and Toto seems to win. This one is a Toto EcoUltramax II ADA with sanagloss, 1.28 gallon per flush. Very exciting. Also not overrated.

Still working on things at the Lenore house, just not with gusto. I am getting re-motivated though.

I actually bought 2 toilets last week, one is for the Lenore house that Kathy and I are working on. The only problem - it has a 10" rough-in vs. a 12" rough-in. I've bought a total of 4 Toto toilets without paying any attention to measurements so I figured my luck would hold. Nope. Just a little too cocky this last time. The plumber taught me how to measure rough-in in case I have to buy any more toilets - (measure from the wall to the middle of the bolt on the floor). Now you know.

-7 in Montana

Every year my siblings and I take one vacation all together. This is only possible because Kathy is able to take care of the 17 pets (yes, SEVENTEEN) between the 3 of us in Greenville. Before that we had to split up and go on trips 2 at a time. We usually go skiing at Big Sky in Montana. Today the low was -7. That actually means that we are not going outside until the afternoon in hopes that we won't freeze body parts.

My friend Lynn from Missoula is visiting for a few days here. Her husband was supposed to come along, but you can't really leave your dogs outside when the temperature is -20 as it was in Missoula last night. So Mike is dog-sitting while we're in Big Sky.

Last night we took a sleigh ride to a cabin on the mountain. Our draft horses were Pepsi and Rum. They are loaned out from a working ranch in Montana where they do all the heavy work with horses rather than tractors and stuff. I believe they are Belgian, Percheron mixes. Beautiful horses.

We also had incredible food. The Lone Mountain cook says "we don't consider vegetables food. We consider vegetables what food eats." So if you don't eat meat you have to make a special order for a vegetarian meal AND you have to specify that fish is not your idea of a vegetarian meal. Even though this was an alien concept to the cook, the meal was wonderful - a spinach linguine with vegetables (what food eats). The prime rib eaters were jealous of Lynn and me. All the food is cooked on this giant old wood burning stove. The rolls are to die for - whole wheat oatmeal. I was very happy that Lynn was tickled about the evening. She loves horses.

Great evening, everybody. Look at the happy horse girls.

Mistake #247

I did it again. Kathy did a beautiful job restaining Adam's floor. No blotches whatsoever, BUT there were some significant swirl marks in one place from the sander which I thought I could fix by just a little touch-up sanding and restaining. Doesn't work that way.

Here are some before pictures of Kathy's floor and then Adam's floor.

Kathy's room 

Adam's room. You can't see the swirl marks.
They are along the far wall.

Below you will see where I sanded the floor and re-stained and re-stained and re-stained. That area just would not take up the stain like the rest of the floor did.

Now what? Re-sand? I'm afraid I might have to. This floor is driving me crazy. 

I finally got a decent camera. I've been using my iPhone which really takes pretty good photos, but I'm thinking I might need something a little more versatile so I got a Canon Powershot G12. It's really quite impressive. Since my family is going skiing next week, I think the camera will come in handy.

Believe it or not - it's still the floors.

I sincerely hope I am not using the same title in May - Still the floors. Ok, so this part of the floor looks pretty good. I was quite disheartened about an area in the middle of Adam's room so I have to sand the floor AGAIN to get this finish off and redo it.

I was so excited yesterday because the floors were ready to stain. I vacuumed for about 2 hours, then used a tack cloth on all of the floors. I was ready to go.  I poured the stain in the roller bucket. Then  I got out the floor finish applicator (basically a mop handle with a fuzzy block) to apply the stain. Then I start laying the dark walnut stain on so thick it was almost black. It was beautiful. My spirits soar because this floor is going to look good when we finish. Then I hurry and wipe of the stain. This is the tedious portion of staining. My arms protested, but MY floor is going to look GOOD. But wait, what is that in the middle of the room? I see 2 large blotchy areas right in the middle that significantly darker than the surrounding floor. It does NOT look good. This is not beautiful floor I have imagined for so many weeks. This will not do.

So I am back to sanding it off. I know what I did wrong. I tried to be cheap with the tack cloth which costs $1.84 per package (2 packages would do the entire house). So I made my own just like they say on the internet, but it raised the grain in 2 areas and there you have it - blotches on my beautiful floor. I also applied way, way too thick a layer of stain and did not wipe it off well so it's not dry yet. It's supposed to dry in 8 hours.

That's this week's floor story.

Here's a picture of the snow still on my driveway and the area that was next to my car. I am pretty sure we got about 8 inches of snow at my house. What is really remarkable is how much is left 5 days after the snow.

The snow was truly delightful. Kids will be out of school this whole week. Monday is Martin Luther King Day so they will be off Monday as well. It's almost as good as Christmas holidays (I still think of snow as all kids do in the south. We love it.)