More Fun with the Wii

The Wii is working. It is supposed to be a magnet for family and friends to come and visit us. We did get a visit from Makenna and from Makenzie. Makenna tried to teach Grandma how to bowl. I think she beat us both though. I guess I need to practice. Makenzie enjoyed some Dancing with Dance Dance Revolution, but I didn't get any photos of it.

DONE

Finished, The End, Fin, Finito, Completed, Accomplished, Settled, Through, Wrapped Up. Mark it on the calendar - January 16, 2008. The photos below show before and after.
Remember, if you want to see a photo in more detail just double click on it. Then when you are through click the "back" button on your browser.






















For those of you far away, here are some close ups of the backsplash tile.










Now what will I blog about? Well, we do have to paint the walls in the dining room.

Just a Couple Things

We were so excited to have Jeff and Melissa over last night. Jeff and I did 18 holes at East Lake golf club in Atlanta on the Wii. And, for probably the only time in my life I beat Jeff at golf. A red letter day in my life. Now if we could just get some of the rest of you to come and play. We also had a great game of Ticket to Ride, which Jeff did win. But I think he and Melissa need to join the ranks of professionals at that game.

And now for something comepletely different. As I was checking on some information about blogging for Tamra I discovered that you can set a blog for more than one person to author the posts. So I have done that for this blog. From now on the posts written by me will be under the Bull Rhino name and Jeanne will be under he own.

Since this is the first one I've done that way, I'll see how it looks for the first time myself as soon as I click "Publish Post"

This part was added after I looked at it. Like I expected it did say "added by Bull Rhino". However, I notice I still have to sign in under the other log in if I want to do any kind of site administration.

Wii Partiied Today

Colt was over for a while before school this morning and I showed him our new Wii. He and I bowled a game. He won fair and square. These dang games are made for kids;^( . Then, so we could work on the kitchen, we showed him the boxing. He loved it. I tried to get him to look at me for a picture, but he was too absorbed. Anyway, he did really well. In this one he won by a split decision. In several he won all three rounds and even had a couple knockouts in some others. We got a second controller today, which will make playing with others a lot more fun. Wii are looking forward to having you over to play.

Wii are ready to Partii

Who'd have believed it. Wii have a Wii. Right now we only have the 5 sports games that come in the box, but we are supposed to have another remote with 9 more games and also a dance/excersize game on the way. So, the Wii little feller (This works better if you do it with a Scottish accent) is ready to go to work.


Any Wii partiiers out there? Or wannabe Wii partiiers? Come on over Wii'd love to have you!!! Do you recognize anybody in the photo of the Wii players?






Yup, that's Mii and GrandMii. Hope to sii you soon!!!

The Never Ending Story of our Kitchen

We have some friends in the ward who are doing a similar project to ours - taking out the dropped ceiling, granite countertops, etc. We talked with them at church today and they were saying they are nearly done. We couldn't believe it, then we found out they were hiring most of it done. We really feel good about doing all of it ourselves (except the bull nosing of the tile).

A lot has happened since my last post on this, on Dec. 13 - of last year. That's less than a month ago. The last thing on that previous post was that the granite tiles were down and waiting for bull nosing and grouting. Well that's been done for about three weeks now and looks like this.

We learned a lesson in the process of getting the bull nosing done. The contractor told us he would create a lot of dust, and he meant a LOT of dust. So, we built a heavy plastic tent to keep as much as possible enclosed. We put fans in the windows and french door to get as much as possible out. It worked great. Very little dust went outside the plastic, but about two days later as Jeanne was looking at the room she said, "look at the ceiling, you can clearly see where the tent was." She was exactly right. As you looked at the ceiling you could see where the plastic was and even where the tape was. We tried to wash it off and that worked on the textured parts, but it made the difference between the textured and the flat ceiling even more obvious, so we ended up putting another coat of fresh paint. But it was worth it. Over and over Jeanne and I have discussed how much better it looks than if we had taken the tiles to him to bull nose and then tried to place it and finish the rest ourselves.

Once that was all done we got the lights in and then when Dustin got here he helped us put the cupboards back where they belonged. Part of this whole process was to have the cabinets staggered across the tops, and also bring the one over the stove out further and hang an over-the-range microwave under it.

I wonder if we snookered poor Jeff. We invited him over to watch an old movie that I had never seen in it's entirety, The 3 Amigos, on the Thursday after Christmas, since Melissa was in Kentucky. We had a nice supper and then watched the movie. Since we were done by about 8 p.m. I took advantage of his youth, strength, and apparantly, naivety and got him to help Dustin get the rest of the cabinets up on the wall. It was wonderful to have such good help as Dustin and Jeff when we needed them.

Jeanne and I have been pretty excited about seeing what the backsplash tile looked like up on the wall, so Friday evening (Jan 4) and Saturday we finally got the tile up. Jeanne put in the last tile behind the sink.











Jeanne's pretty pleased. Look close and you can see we have not grouted it yet, that will happen this week. To wrap this one up, here are a couple photos of the tile and how the kitchen looks as I write this post.



So, what do you think? The new lights are up, including the new hanging lights over the bar. We have the wood for the crown moulding, we just need to get it painted and up, and we still need to do some bead board on the cabinet above the microwave. Of course we've still got switches and plugs and plates. Stay on the look out for the next, which will probably be the last post on this subject.

We Had Christmas Anyway

It was a different Christmas for us this year. We were in the middle of the Kitchen Remodel and getting ready for Christmas was almost more than we could do. We got the gifts (Okay, "we" means Jeanne) But we (this time "we" is both of us) could not get up the strength to decorate for the Holidays. Our total Christmas decorations consisted of 1 12" high metal Christmas tree that holds Christmas cards. But that is okay, because we had a GREAT Christmas. As always we had the big Burton family party on Christmas eve.

Note about the photos - The rubber chickens are the ones in yellow






The best part of the evening was that Dustin and family came home with us AND, Melissa and Jeff came over to our house for the evening. It was really fun to have them. We were up too late that night but it was worth it.



It was wonderful to wake up in the morning and share Christmas morning with Sean and Anna. Anna was really excited to give her mom the gift she created for her. Later we got a chance to visit Eric and his family and Wade and his family.












Taydon and Sean had a great time playing and of course Anna just couldn't get enough of Presley. From the look on Presley's face I'm not sure she felt the same about Anna.

We sure missed Kathryn and her family.

We wish you all a WONDERFUL 2008. Watch for news on the kitchen soon!

Kitchen Update

I've had a lot of fun since my last post. Well, fun may not be the word, but I didn't want to use the words I really felt like. This photo shows the corner where the lazy susan is. It shows some detail on the old counter top and the oak bull nose edge. It just happens to also show a little bit of the sink, mostly hidden under the plastic on the right side.

Before I could move forward on preparing the counter top for the granite, I had to take out the sink. This is a Kohler cast iron that weighs about 80 pounds, and the way you take it out is to peel out that chrome strip around the edge and then the sink is loose. The problem is that I did not know exactly how it would come out so after removing the faucet, the disposal, and disconnecting the drain lines I started ripping out the chrome strip. All of the sudden I had enough of it peeled out and the sink dropped like a huge rock into the cabinet underneath. In the process it snapped off the part of the drain line that came in through the wall.

The pipe goes out the side and then curves and goes into the wall. Since it was glued in I realized that the only option I had was to open up the wall and cut away the whole section and replace it. (The wall is straight up and down, not slanted like this picture appears.)

The problem was that the pipe I had to cut away was behind the lazy susan, and so to get to it I had to take it apart and take out the shelves and the large piece of masonite that surrounded it so that stuff won't fall off and get lost back in the unreachable corners.

Then I could get to the place where the pipe was (after I cut away some more of the sheet rock).

When the sink dropped and broke the pipe I told Jeanne that we had just added two weeks to the job. Fortunately, it turns out I probably spent less than about 5 or 6 hours of actual work to fix it. Of course with the limited time I have available it still added several days to it.

Once that was fixed I could move forward and we started putting on the hardibacker so we could get the tile down.

In the photo of the sink opening you can see some detail of the Hardibacker on the top and on the front apron. You can also see the new pipe coming in from the break I had to fix. On the right you can see the granite tile. The tape is there to hold the apron pieces on while the thinset dries.

As I write this we have actually removed all the masking tape and even done quite a bit of painting of the kitchen where the cabinets and backsplash will not be covering the walls. We have a guy coming on Saturday to bull nose and polish the edges of the tiles. We can't wait. Naturally, we will post photos.

Remember, If you want to see the photos in more detail, simply click on them and they will enlarge to full size.

Feeling Better Tonight

Some of the littl neighbor girls stopped by to bring something to Jeanne this afternoon and one of them asked "Are you painting?". I asked her how she new and she said "You have paint all over your shirt". Well, I've been painting the last two days and tonight (Tah Dah) the ceiling is DONE, FINISHED, COMPLETED. I was sooooo worried about the new work blending with the old work, and I have to say, even if you know where it is you probably can't see it. You have no idea how happy that makes me. It's 8:30 and we are going to go drink some hot chocolate and watch Ratatouille .

Another Milestone in the Kitchen

I don't think that I have mentioned that one of my biggest concerns of this kitchen remodel has been making the transition from the new work to the old work in a way that does not show. The old ceiling is textured and once before when I did a patch in another part of the house it looked "okay", but it is still visible if you know where to look. Since this joint goes clear across the entire kitchen from one side to the other I have been very worried. In addition to that you throw in the sky light and look at the old texturing around that and it compounds it. Anyway . . . Last night we started the texturing. Some friends at work told me to thin the mud (drywall joint compound) with a little water. A friend of mine who had his own painting business for several years, told me not to thin it. I had done several texturings before and always felt that they were not bad for an amateur, but I was never 100% happy with them, so I tried the thinning and I think it came out pretty good. As it looks right now it seems to be quite difficult to see the transition from the new to the old. Tomorrow we will start painting with a coat of primer and then we'll see even better. I think the best I can hope for is that people don't walk in the room and see where the transition is or be able to see that the new work was even done, compared to the old work. If I accomplish that I'll be happy.

If you click on and enlarge the photo with the sky light you can see where the ceiling goes from shiny to dull. Of course the shiny is the old paint and the dull is the new work that has not been painted yet. I'll post more photos when the painting is done. That is when the tale will be told.