Kitchen work

I am tired but happy. The tile has been laid in both the living room and the kitchen. It looks so good! I have the same floor running the entire length of the house. I don't even mind putting back all the things that have been dragged into the living room while this and the south room are in process.

Jen and her boyfriend came over last night and moved the fridge for me. Jen cleaned up the old yukky vinyl behind the fridge, then I laid a cheaper tile to fill the holes that had been torn in the old vinyl. Since Dad glued the original vinyl down some ten or fifteen years ago, there is NO WAY I am going to pull it up. The second picture shows the "before".

I started laying tile about 9:00 Friday night and stopped when the second box of new tile was empty. By that time it was 4:30 AM. I decided to lay the last box of tile on Saturday. (I get involved in projects and lose track of time. What can I say?)

Saturday afternoon when I got back to the project I realized that I should make a commitment about the cupboards. For four years I have waffled between painting them or refinishing them. Paint won. I grabbed the can of paint left from doing the trim in the bathroom and started on the base cabinets. Tomorrow I'll go outside and paint doors and drawers.

I am not a dripless painter. I live my work. That's why I keep one old shirt just for painting. I have lost too much weight to wear the old painting pants, so I grabbed a pair of shorts that are getting too big and enjoyed slinging chocolate brown paint.

By the time I was done, the old floor looked like a Jackson Pollock painting; my hot pink tie-dyed shirt had a chocolate brown accent color; and my legs were wearing a polka dot look for the season. If you look closely at the picture of the painted cabinets, you can see my artistic additions to the old floor. I think the chocolate brown cabinets and white appliances will give the kitchen a classic look... especially with my new tile floor.

Living Room is Tiled!

It's done! And it looks so good. Good things are worth waiting for. :)

And what do I plan to do for an encore? The kitchen floor, of course. I am going to continue the tile into the kitchen, through the utility room to match the floor already in the bathroom.

I'm looking forward to this winter when I will sit in my favorite chair, watch a little TV and knit -- and admire my new floor. :)

(No knitting right now. I'm too busy doing other things.)

BACK AT IT!

The divorce is final; the dust has settled and I've gotten on with my life. This summer I've continued the never ending saga of weeding three houses worth of stuff to fit one small bungalow. No matter how much I throw away, there is still TOO MUCH STUFF! (Hm.. I got rid of one husband. Does that count for housecleaning??)

The good news is I have emptied the garage enough that both cars can now be parked inside at the same time! (what a concept.) :)

I had wanted to wait until it was time to install the hardwood floors before I put flooring in the living room. Since I can't predict when that will be, I've opted for Plan B. As you can tell from the first photo, our painted floor held up pretty well for three years, but the paint is wearing off. I could repaint it, but I want a more long-term solution. I chose self-stick tile.

I started putting down self-stick tile at the beginning of August. It is half finished now and looking really good. I need to make another trip to Home Depot for more tile, then the entire living room will be done! Done! Wow!!! I will be able to mop and not leave shreds of mop fibers caught to the particle board.

It's the little things that make me happy.