Update September 3

I'm having trouble with compulsive behavior. All I want to do is put dishes in cabinets. Is this wrong?

The past few days has been more job-work, more sanding, more priming, and ceiling painting. And not the cool ceiling painting like in the Sistine Chapel. More like &$^#%&@ painting-the-ceiling white-and-why-does-all-that-crap-keep-sticking-to-the-roller-and-transferring-to-the-ceiling painting?????? The new mantra is: I just shouldn't care anymore, I just shouldn't care anymore. Maybe we'll do a mural on the ceiling. Maybe we'll fill Diet Cokes with Mentos and let them paint the ceiling. Maybe inverse the house, tape cheesecloth to the cats feet, dip them in paint and make them run over the ceiling. (I wonder how much a house inverter costs?) Regardless, it's just going to be the bane of my existence, and I just have to not care anymore.

Got the yard mowed yesterday, with Earl bearing down and then teasing us. No rain in sight--not even a slight breeze. Just clouds and a comfortable day. Perhaps the dry days will keep the lawn short so we can finally get some work done!

Rich had today off, so we started by finishing priming and painting other areas of the kitchen. Then we got some COLOR on the walls. What a tremendous difference! For those of you who've seen our old kitchen in Stepford, we're using a very similar color, a pine/grey green. With mohogany cabinets, this looks amazing so far, albeit a bit dark. We prefer the term "rich". That way it sounds intentional.

While the first coat dried, we took a side trip to Lumber Liquidators to see flooring options for the kitchen. We took a sample cabinet door and three pieces of our hardwood sin flooring to compare. It turns out we have 2 1/4" red oak in a natural stain, rustic grade. So we're trying to decide between adding more of that, or going with something exotic, like Dali Cork, which has dark swirls (to go with the cabinets) and light swirls (that goes with the oak throughout the house). Problem is, it's a bit busy and we're worried it would look dark and busy on the floor. But it's gorgeous, so we thought "maybe a band around the room, with an inlay of oak on the diagonal". The problem is, the cork isn't designed to be laid that way . . . it comes in interlocking sheets, and the ends that we want to interlock don't have interlocking at all. So we'd have to glue or nail down, which we're very unsure about. So we have to think about this for a while. But at least we got a good feel of what we have to work with.

Went to Lowe's and picked up toggle bolts to install cabinets, screws, and plywood for laying under the cabinets. Once we got home, we ate and then pondered the next move.

In an old house, you have to remember nothing is plumb, level, or square. So we had to find the lowest point in the ceiling from which to hang the first cabinet, so that all the others will fit, too, when all connected to look like one. With our handy dandy laser level (yes, we have one), we were able to quickly find the lowest point, measure to install a ledger board along the wall, and start mounting cabinets. The ledger board is a straight piece of wood screwed in place at the bottom of the wall cabinets, and serves as a third hand, so that when you put cabinets up against the wall, something is supporting it from underneath besides a weak-gotta-get-to-the-gym wife. Yes, you have to patch and paint holes, but small price to pay for a third hand, which in normal circumstances can cost, ahem, an arm or a leg. (I crack myself up.)

The first, corner wall cabinet, was a bit of a bear. Walls aren't plumb, so you have to take into account what looks most level to the eye, what is most plumb by ruler, and how much you want your plates to tumble out unassisted when opening the cabinet doors (or not). After much shimming and false starting, we finally got the first cabinet up. Sans door, of course, because at least we thought that far ahead. With the ledger board, it was way easier than the Ashebrook job, and my job was to look like Sysyphus pushing against a cabinet while Rich threw his shoulder out of socket screwing them to wall studs. We make a great pair.

From then, it went pretty smoothly. After five cabinets, however, we have snags in either direction. Since we had originally ordered cabinets when we were knocking out all the kitchen walls so it didn't much matter exactly where one end ended, we may have an inch or two to play with in the other corner now around the fridge. So we can't install anything down there without having symmetrical bottom cabinets installed, which we can't install yet either. And if we go in the other direction with wall cabinets over the stove, then we run into the whole microwave-hood-vented-to-the-roof problem, where there's lots of measuring and cutting, and, oh yeah, getting on the roof in 99 degrees (no, Earl, did NOT help us out like we thought). And I am NOT venting back into the kitchen, because if I wanted the smell of fish in my house after cooking, I'd have just left pieces out to rot.

So then we thought, maybe we start on the pantry, but that involved breaking out lots of extra tools to cut plywood bases, and it was already about 6 pm. So then we settled on starting the base corner cabinets underneath what we already installed above.

Of course, we ran into a snag. The A/C vent that used to be in the den, that's now in the expanded kitchen, conveniently lands between two cabinets. So now we have to figure out how to re-route the venting--do we move it across the room, or is the main HVAC trunk line in the way?--do we move it over one joist and under one cabinet?--why doesn't Lowe's or HD carry a 4x10 register 90 degree elbow???? So Rich is trying to hunt down the part we need to do that. Needless to say, we kinda came to a standstill. From here on, none of the cabinets are that easy to install because of one thing or another. Again, not a surprise.

I have 5 cabinets and paint on the wall. The cabinets have been vacuumed. They've been dusted and rubbed shiny. The doors are on and the hinges work. I want to put things inside them. I feel the draw like a child to a shiny red button. I want to fill them up with dishes and cooking condiments like EVOO and Pam. It's startling how powerful this draw is. Is it nesting? Is it closure? Is it insanity? I MUST put dishes in them. Just thinking about it makes my face sweat. Or is that a heart attack?

Rich and I are both working over the weekend, so we're not sure how much we can get done, but it's getting there again, and that's VERY encouraging. The cats are only mildly terrorized, but not enough to not beg for food. I think even they recognize that this room should be a kitchen.

Small divergence for the 'Rents . . . saw a black and white backed, red tufted-head woodpecker getting drunk on the fermenting apples today. And a bunny just lounging around underneath (couldn't tell if it was Scarbod or not). Isn't there some sort of story there?