I changed my mind

So, the kitchen ceiling has officially been removed and my back is currently in rebellion because of the work.

Somehow I don't think what was revealed is quite up to code:

Remember how I said I was planning on covering the old plaster with 1/4" sheetrock? Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I personally think the red wheelbarrow classes up the joint:

And here's some documentary evidence that I actually *do* perform some of the work around here:

It's actually a bit depressing ripping out the plaster; I feel like I'm stripping away the character of the house. But this is an external wall with zero insulation, so I made the decision to rip it down, insulate, and then recover with drywall. The plaster work was really well done, though, and keyed in very tightly. You can even see the horse hair:

And our oven is supposedly arriving on Monday. Cross your fingers.

Dust and dishwashers

Last night Gina and I took the tyke out to a local bar/restaurant for an evening away from the mess that used to be our kitchen. The level of dirt and dust that seems to be suspended in the air makes it seem like you’re living in a dust storm in the middle of the Sahara, and it’s just not conducive to a nice meal at home. This morning I grabbed a glass from the dish rack—we still have a sink and a dish rack—and couldn’t believe the film of dust that coated the sucker. And I didn’t even do any work yesterday.

Tonight, though, I plan to kick up a bit more dust. I need to finish pulling out one base cabinet and pull a few other miscellaneous pieces, and then the electrician comes next week to do the wiring. The ceiling is wide open – I ripped that out Monday and Tuesday night – so it should be easy for him to run new electric. The plan is to install recessed lighting, run wiring for the vent hood and dishwasher, and reroute the 220 line for the oven. And we’ll toss in a few additional receptacles just for good measure.

Right now the smokehouse is the staging area for all most of our appliances, and it takes every ounce of effort to resist tearing apart the cardboard containers to gaze lovingly at all the stainless steel glory. A 36-inch cooktop! A dishwasher! God, I can’t wait to listen to that sucker hum as it works its scrubbing magic on all our grubby goods! That, my friends, is an evening’s entertainment I can’t WAIT to have.

Why most of the appliances? Because Lowe’s has farked up a few things: first they forgot to order the microwave, and then they couldn’t locate the oven we had purchased, so they delivered everything BUT the oven. They claim they found it, but I’m dubious since we still don’t have it in our possession. Hopefully they’ll get in there next week. And we still need the vent hood, which may or may not arrive by November. Sigh.

In the interim, I need to install the ceiling and put 1/4” sheetrock on the walls (I opted to cover the plaster rather than knock it out). Once that’s done, the cabinet guy should be here to install everything. The final step will be getting the plumber in to finish the sink connections and hook up the dishwasher!

Did I mention I can’t wait to have a dishwasher?

Rebuilding

Six years used to seem like an eternity. Six years ago I was in Philly. Six years ago I commuted three hours round trip for work. I was still in my 20s. Unmarried. I could stay up until 2 a.m. and get up at 5 a.m. with little problem.

These days, six years ago seems like a blink.

I watched it all unfold on TV while standing on a treadmill in the corporate gym, 45 minutes outside of Manhattan. Gina, working at the Philadelphia Inquirer’s website, IM’d me and said there was a plane crash. Check out CNN. What I saw made me gasp. I caught the live coverage just as the second plane disappeared and left a fireball in its place.

My brother. Jeezus. Who else is there?

The phone. Nothing but an automated voice telling me the circuits were overloaded. Fuck. I finally got through to my mom, who said that she had heard from Pete, that he was OK. He had been on the subway from Queens when it happened, heading to work.

They were just at work, too. The guy in the yellow dress shirt and dark pants, his left foot tucked behind his right knee as he falls 100 stories to the ground. Turn the photo upside down and he’s like Superman, heading skyward to save a damsel in distress. An angel. Floating. But he’s not. He’s just a guy that had to make a decision that morning, from his office in the sky: stay or leap into nothingness.

Me? I don’t have a story. I wasn’t there. Didn’t see anything first hand. If you want the truth, never in a million years did I think I’d be writing this. I’ve complained to Gina that the memorials, the corporate ads chiding me to never forget – it’s all too much. Never forget? Fuck you. But sitting here, today, avoiding the coverage, the news, it’s like I’m overflowing. The display on the phone even sets me off: Sept. 11 10:57 a.m.

I really can’t explain the profound sadness that I feel on this day. Where we are, what we’ve become. I don’t deserve to feel this, to feel sad. I have a home, a child, a wife. It’s so much more than so many others. And somehow, somewhere, that day left a mark. A chunk is missing.

Yeah, I don’t deserve to cry. But somehow, I just can’t help it.

Garden Act III

Now that the Japanese beetles have died off, our green bean teepee is thriving. I picked several meals' worth of beans this morning. Unfortunately with the weekend demolition and removal of our kitchen cooktop, we don't have many ways to prep them, other than steaming them in the microwave. I'll be giving some to my in-laws...

Here is a corner of another part of the garden, where I planted some fall greens. The full row on the right is broccoli raab. I've planted it twice before, in spring, but it went to seed really quickly. These fall seedlings are looking awesome!

The half-row in the middle is comprised of beets. To the left of the beets is a row of spinach (looks like dirt in this photo, but the seedlings are just poking through!). Last year we had great luck with spinach planted shortly after Labor Day... enjoyed it in early November.

On the far left, out of the photo, I planted turnips. I would like to try to get another row or two of greens in, soon.

Kitchen, disappearing

Yesterday afternoon and last night, Evan took out the stove, by himself. Here's the empty space where it used to be:

Tonight he started disassembling the ceiling, but I haven't had time to take photos of that yet. Probably will take another two or three evenings to finish.

Demolition Man

With cabinets ordered, appliances en route, and a countertop selected, my dad and I officially began tearing out the kitchen on Wednesday night. I planned to work Thursday and Friday as well, but both Gina and Nate came down with fevers Thursday afternoon, so that plan was shelved and we opted to tackle most of it on Saturday. A dumpster arrived Friday afternoon, making clean up a cinch, and with two hammers, two prybars, and my trusty Sawzall, we went to work. Here's the kitchen when we moved in; apologies for the the confused gentleman that appears in the center of the frame:

After a few hours, we had a good chunk of the cabinets ripped out.

My dad and I were both amazed at the quality of construction on these cabinets. They weren't overly decorative, but they certainly were constructed to outlive me: motise and tenon joints, spriral 8d nails, and 3/4" plywood in many instances. The base cabinets needed some gentle urging by a 10 lb. sledge hammer to convince them to give up their small piece of kitchen real estate. The one base cabinet had a notation written in pencil underneath: "Oliver Feinhour - March 3, 1959." Gina's dad tells me the guy is still living somewhere in the region.

We also discovered more of a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch painting technique that we first saw on the walls of the dining area.

There's a PA Dutch name for this, but for the life of me I can't recall what it is -- Schtickle Stapf? Diffle Dapf? I've been told two or three times what it's called and for some reason I just can't remember the name. In any event, the technique uses a base color, and then two or three additional colors are applied overtop using a sponge.

Still to do: rip out old ceiling, knock out plaster, run new electric. Time to get to work.

And so it goes

So, it's nearly the end of summer and it’s time to review the list of things I planned to get done over the past few months but never even started. House painting? Check. Rewiring workshop? Check. Finish painting garage? Check. Repair east side bulkhead doors? Check.

None of it finished.

Flagstone patio? No, I failed there. That one I actually completed, though it took me about four times as long as my initial estimate. And I think we’ve used it once since I finished it. Oh well.

So, outside of work and taking care of an incredibly energetic 9-month-old, what have we been doing?

Kitchen planning.

That’s right, the kitchen is finally getting renovated. We’re just about to begin tearing out the old 1940’s goodness, but I’m already exhausted (and slightly overwhelmed) by the planning process. Who knew that planning the freakin’ renovation could be so grueling? I don’t think my wife would argue that I am the absolute king of underestimating what it’s going to take to get a project done (see flagstone patio above). We’ve spent more hours than I care to recall sitting around discussing cabinet finishes, countertops, color schemes, floors, and appliances. In the process we’ve managed to spend a boatload of cash, too, but that’s why God invented gin: to soften the blow of these types of situations.

The one unanticipated problem is the placement of the cooktop. To maximize counter space near the sink we opted to place the cooktop in an island/peninsula that will separate the dining area from the kitchen. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The problem is the vent hood. Not only are island vent hoods damn expensive, but there’s the problem of ductwork. With a wall vent, you typically don’t have far before you hit an exterior wall. With this, I have to span quite a distance before I reach an outer wall.

The other problem is that the vent hood that we ordered from Jenn-Air is coming, ohh, at some point in the next two months. That’s the best estimate we could get. Which most likely means it won’t arrive until after the cabinets and everything else has been installed. So, I have to somehow manage to either (a) run the duct without actually having the hood, or (b) avoid duct and just use a recirculating solution, sans ductwork. From what I’ve heard, option B is not the best bet, but it may be my only solution at this point.

But first, I have to tear everything out. Demolition officially started last evening, and I’m sure we’ll document the damage here. Stay tuned.