slow week

That title is not entirely true.

What is true is that it was a slow week in home improvement.

After 12 hour days at work on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and after spending every free moment on Wednesday making 1380 copies for a meeting that afternoon thus missing lunch and then grabbing a chicken sandwich at McDonald's on my way to Parent/Teacher conferences that evening, I do believe I either got food poisoning or over-stressed.

Either way, I was running fever and slept most of Thursday. And after nearly 30 hours of sleep, I was alive and at'em on Friday, which I had off anyway.

So in one day... yes, *one* day, I finished the kitchen project.

The kitchen has been slow and ongoing for two years. Slowly, the cabinet handles got replaced, the cabinet hinges got replaced, the window treatments got replaced, the faucet got replaced, and the stove hood got replaced. The first and, ironically, last thing to get done in the kitchen was the painting. We painted over the 15 y/o contractors paint as soon as we moved in. We did a messy job, but it was right before Christmas and we didn't have time to touch-up.

Two years later, I finally touched it up. I replaced the tacky looking plexiglass splatter guard behind the stove with tile and installed undercabinet lighting.

My dear mom was smart enough to snap a picture of the kitchen the day we moved in.

[ALL PICTURES FROM THIS PROJECT HAVE BEEN LOST.  YOU'LL HAVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION]

And here it is today.


Stove before


Stove after


I had fully planned on working on the painting of the master bedroom/bathroom. I know it's just painting, but I keep putting it off.

However, I am proud to say that the dining room table is clear. And not because we hid everything in the garage. But because all the projects that we bought stuff for back in March and put on that table thinking it would take a couple weeks, is done.

And they didn't take two weeks. They took nearly two months.

My biggest lesson: However long you think your project is going to take, multiply by 3.