Day 9: Back to work

We might see some kitchen action today, a day earlier than anticipated. Jeff the carpenter called and asked if he could come this afternoon to work. Of course he can! Maybe door/drawer pulls? Maybe range hood? Now that I've gotten a lot of the dust and grit cleaned up from previous facets of the remodeling, it's time to add a new layer or two if it's range hood installation day.

2:15

Jeff the carpenter is here. First order of business is switching the direction of one of the doors. I was concerned that there would be a lot of head bonking if the door of the angled cabinet next to the sink opened toward the sink instead of away from it. The little kiddos bonk their heads enough for all of us; no need to have a cabinet door causing goose eggs for the adults.

That's done, and now he's leveling the doors so everything is even before handles are put on. Or in. Attached, anyway. 

4:30

Cabinet and drawer handles are done. No more pinched fingers! I know why carpentry wasn't my calling. Fifty handles installed in the amount of time it took me to open the plastic packaging each one came in. 

Side bar:
Writing the phrase "plastic packaging" gave me a flashback to one summer when I was in college and worked at the U of MN bookstore located in Nicholson Hall. Whenever there was any down time for student employees, we were sent to the basement, often for two or three hours at a time, where we counted paper, put it into flat plastic bags, and heat sealed each bag. The bookstore bought three-hole punched notebook paper in bulk, and our job was to prep it for retail sale. Each bag contained 100 sheets of college-rule notebook paper, which we counted sheet by sheet using one of those disgusting rubber finger gizmos to keep the paper from slipping. I'd rather have licked my finger every now and then to count the sheets. The basement was hot and humid, and my finger got wrinkly and white from sweating inside the disgusting piece of rubber that had been used by other people for who knows what. Cripes, I'm completely freaked out thinking about it!! I could go on about running a soldering iron across the flap of the plastic bag to seal it, how awful it smelled after a while, and how many times I burned myself doing that boring job. But I won't.

Back to the kitchen, where Jeff the carpenter has completed his next task -- cutting an opening for the heating vent in one of the baseboards. 

6:15
We left for a while to have dinner. When we returned, the airplane hangar/ventilation hood framework had been installed and Jeff the carpenter was gone. He is done with his work until the electrician takes a turn, then he'll come back to make further adjustments, trim the window, replace a threshold that was chipped during floor installation, and put up Christmas lights (not really).

Here's how it looks now. Still plenty-o-white! It's time for Bill the electrician to reappear. I'm going to do some nudging tomorrow morning.

 

If you're questioning my counting skills, I'm only enumerating days for my blog entries that involve actual work by a carpenter, electrician, plumber, or tile layer. The first work day was April 7, sixteen days ago, and nine of those days fit my criteria. That's a 9 to 7 ratio of work vs. non-work. I'm not trying to make a point. It's just a mathematical thing.