Kitchen - Before and Middle - still waiting for after

My kitchen is getting a "refacing" from Sears. I used to think that meant that they walked in the door with new door fronts and walked out with my old doors. But, now I'm seeing why I spent quite a few thousand on this effort.

This morning my dining and kitchen area looked like this:

Notice the unclean picture of my kitchen. "Before" photos should always be messy so as to enhance the "after" results. Just like those face photos where they put really bad make-up on people to make them look worse before they glamour-ize them.

Right now it looks like this:

Completely gutted! Kind of cool that this is about $10,000 less than if you have them put in new frames.

This posting is primarily for my father's viewing since he has crowded our email with very large attachments showing sheet rock, unfinished deck framing, window sills, door frames, sheet rock, rocks, more unfinished deck framing, tiles, more rocks, more sheet rock, more deck framing and more tiles. (-: The difference is this - he actually does the work and I just prepare the work area for someone else to do the work while I do my job work and post pictures of their efforts to my blog.

Before the end of the week I will have the "after" pictures.

Home Improvement

So, this weekend I tried my hand at home improvement. It's something that I try every year now in January. It always ends up the same. I end up hiring a professional from craigslist to come over and do it for me.

This weekend I tried painting both bathrooms and installing new lighting. I know what to do, but somehow my brain and hands don't cooperate to make the final product presentable. While I was trying to balance the new light in one hand and balance the electrical wires in the other, I had one knee on the sink top and one foot on the toilet seat. First, the toilet lid broke off and landed on the floor. Second, my other knee slid into a little plastic container of nails that promptly fell on the floor. Third, of course, the light ended up barely hanging from the wall by the horrible electrical connections I had created with those white, black and cooper wires. At that point the task ended. A guy is at my house right now installing them all the while talking about how he can have his crew paint my house AND re-face the kitchen cabinets. Hmm, tempting, but no. This experience, like all the other Januarys, have taught me that we all can't be good at everything we try.

Sears and Craigslist will be getting all of my future business.

Ok, now he is telling me to buy bathroom ceiling fans that have little lights. They somehow add value to the house?