The Reveal

Since last week, for all intents and purposes, our construction has been done,* and we have been moving back into the areas we've been without for the last 5 1/2 months. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to wake up in the morning and not worry about when or if workers are going to show up. And even better than that is having a bowl of cereal for breakfast and finding all the parts, bowl, spoon, cereal, and milk, on the same floor and in the same room, to boot. What a pleasure. 

We are still trying to figure out the best use of the new cabinets. Some things seem to be working well, and others we're puzzling over. But we have all of the boxes of food and dishes out of the basement, and only a few boxes left that we are still deciding the fate of the contents.

So here is the big reveal. This is not HGTV, so the before and after pictures aren't the best, but I think you'll get the idea. BTW, this is the nicest kitchen I have ever had, and I feel very lucky to have it. 

Before: The wall with the stove leading into the office.

After: We closed the doorway into the office and gained more counter space. The stove is (mostly) in the same place. Now we have a hood that vents to the outside. That should help a lot on the days when we're cooking fish or cabbage.

Before: The wall with the fridge. On the other side of the microwave, just out of the picture, was a door. At the far end is another door.

After: The door opening at the far end of the above picture is what you see on the right hand of this picture. We expanded and shifted the other doorway. The narrow opening before was a choke point, so we hope the wider door helps traffic flow. The cabinets are arranged differently than before, so I'm unsure if we have a net gain or loss on this wall. However, we did lose counter space here. BTW, we will be getting wallpaper on the wall behind the coffee pot. 

While I'm not sure if we gained storage space on this wall, it's much more user-friendly to creaky knees with these pullout drawers.

At the end of the refrigerator wall cabinets, opening at 90 degrees to the others is this small cabinet. The idea was that it would be a drop spot for phones, wallets, mail, etc. Well, as it turned out, the shelves are only three inches deep, so not much will fit in there, including Ward's wallet. So it has become our spice rack. The shelves aren't big enough for any of the larger containers, but we have plenty of room to alphabetize the smaller jars.

Before: Sink Wall

After: Sink Wall The sink and dishwasher stayed in the same place because it was cheaper not to move the plumbing. The cabinets are a little different than before, with the main addition of a pullout recycling and trash drawer on the other side of the sink from the dishwasher. The bins for the trash and recycling always seemed to be in the way before.

Before; The peninsula extending from the sink wall.

After: The main thing we did here was remove the upper cabinets. While the storage was nice, they blocked seeing anyone sitting at the table. Since we don't have a separate dining room and use this space a lot, that was annoying.  

We made the base cabinets on the peninsula shallower so that we now have room for two bar stools on the backside of it. Ward is working on the stools and is finishing them similar to our table. 

Before: Our dining table and door to the pantry.

After: We refinished the table, but the chairs are the same. Currently, we don't have the leaf in the table. The table fits when it's in, but it makes the space a bit crowded.

We were able to expand the pantry out over the basement steps below to double its size. It's not huge, but there's room to store the small appliances there now, which is welcome since we lost counter space where some of them lived before.

There are more details, but that seems like enough for now. 

*Still to do:

1. Wallpaper behind the coffee bar.

2. Finish open wooden shelves near the sink.

3. Curtains

4. Artwork

5. Learn how new appliances work.

The first one will be done by the contractor, but the rest of the list is ours to do.

Inspiration, Thank's Frugal Girl

 If you hop over to the Frugal Girl's post today, you will see the results of an oak table she redid. Recently, she moved into an unfurnished house and needed furniture-some of which she found in an abandoned house that her brother bought, including her table. 

When I first saw parts of the table she was working on, I realized that it was the same table we had and that we planned to redo it somehow before moving it back into the kitchen. While our table was in better shape than hers, we had had it for over 30 years and it was well worn. I watched with curiosity to see what she was going to do and liked her idea of painting the base and staining the top. Ward who was going to do much of the work liked that idea too since sanding the curved base enough so it could be stained would was going to be an almost impossible job.

The first thing he did was cut the leaf into 1/3 and 2/3 portions. The table goes into a relatively small space and that gives us more flexibility in fitting the table size to the situation. This required extra hardware and a fair amount of adjustment, but it all works now. Ward's finishing process was much like what the Frugal Girl did, but he did some extra steps when he finished the top. I think this was as much as for a learning experience as anything else, but it produced beautiful results.

As for the colors, the base is one of the colors in our backsplash tile and the top has a walnut stain.

We have moved the table back into the kitchen and as of last weekend, the kitchen was finally done enough that we could start moving back in. More pictures coming soon of the whole room. But for now, here's our new-to-us table. 

In darker lighting, the base looks dark blue and the top looks browner.

Thankful Sunday, June 19, 2022

I am thankful for Fathers.

I come from a long line of fathers. 

My own father was a dedicated, rough-and-tumble dad who set good examples of hard work and integrity. His father, whom I knew, was quiet with his own set of problems he never quite figured out how to handle. My two maternal grandfathers died before I was born, but one was reported to be mean, and the other was reported to be generous when times were tough but was always on the move.

Even though these men were not perfect, I am thankful for them and those who came before them because they helped make up the mosaic I am today.

Happy Father's Day!

*If that sounds like too many grandfathers, I had one paternal grandfather, two maternal grandfathers, one the birth certificate father, and one the biological father.

Thankful Sunday-June 12, 2022

 I am thankful for a fun day with the family.

Nothing earth-shattering here, but it's always fun when Ward and I can get together with both Wally and Theo like we did yesterday. We had a rare day where none of us were working, so Theo, Ward, and I piled in the car to go to Wally's. The conversation on the way was interesting as Theo, the one with the economics degree, explained the impact of the many variables affecting today's inflation worries. This is something I have no background in, so I always find it interesting-especially when someone explains it to me, and I don't have to sort through a lot of reading to get the same information. 

We met briefly at Wally's apartment before heading out and got to see the tomato he's growing on his balcony, from which he's already eaten two tomatoes. We have a few blossoms on our plants, but are a long way away from getting fruit. However, good things come to those who wait, right? 

Wally knows I enjoy seeing other libraries, and he has wanted to show me his local one for a while, so that's where we headed next. As the males in the family browsed their favorite sections, I checked out how they had things organized and the displays they had. I sometimes pick up tips when visiting other libraries that I can take back to work. This time I saw a small sign I might use.

A surprising number of people think they
shouldn't take a book from a display. But, of course, that's what we want.

After perusing the library, we headed across the street for lunch. It had been raining all morning, but never hard enough that an umbrella or raincoat didn't keep us protected. It was nice to be in an area where we could walk from one place to another and do it in the rain. The lunch spot was a New York-style pizza place with reasonable prices, especially considering what food costs these days. I got a gigantic piece of supreme pizza for $5. It was big enough that I had it for both lunch and dinner. However, if I go with full disclosure, I also had some cookies to supplement the pizza. The meal of champions - pizza and cookies. :)

Then we went into Baltimore to visit the Second Chance store - a building thrift store on steroids. Theo had never been there, so the rest of us thought he needed to see it. Just like my first visit, I flitted from one thing to the next amazed and awed by the amount and variety in the store. We were there to look for bar stools for the new kitchen. However, despite the vast amount of merchandise, we did not find any that would work for us. But it was fun looking. I was about halfway through my visit before I remembered to take pictures. A few of them are at the bottom of this post.

When we were tired of Second Chance, we took Wally back to his apartment and headed home. But the fun wasn't over yet. We stopped at Aldi's along the way to pick up a few groceries. Then, finally, we returned to fussy cats who wanted to be petted, and all was right with the world.

So there you have it. Our fun day: an economics lesson, a visit to a library, a big slice of pizza, shopping in a giant thrift store, and a stop at Aldi's. Sometimes it's the little things. In fact, it is usually the little things, especially when you get to enjoy them with family.

A few things for sale at Second Chance.

Memories

 One of my recent StoryWorth prompts was, "What Were Birthdays Like When You Were A Child?" For the prompt, I wrote about birthday traditions from my childhood and how they varied as I got older. Then I sent a draft to my sisters, complete with a picture from my 6th birthday party. I often send drafts of the prompts to them to get comments about what they remember and sometimes to clarify things. This usually leads to interesting discussions and reminiscing.

After reviewing what I had sent, my oldest sister commented that the picture was not from my 6th birthday but more like my 4th. She is six years older than I am, so she often has clearer memories of things than I do from the early years. However, I told her that I remember this birthday very clearly because that was when I got a Bible with my name on it, and Mother didn't give us Bibles until we could read. I was not reading at four. Then another sister chimed in and said that four made sense to her. I was starting to get irritated because they didn't agree with me. This was not a fuzzy memory as some things were. It was very clear to me. I responded and said the picture was labeled on the back in Mother's handwriting, and it said, "June's 6th birthday." The oldest sister said that wasn't right if you looked at the clues in the picture's background; it looked like we hadn't lived in this particular house for very long because of the sparseness of furniture. I couldn't believe that she was persisting with her line of thinking after all I said. 

The next thing I did was get the picture out to scan the back of it and send proof that I was right. And you know what I found? I found it was my handwriting on the back of the picture, not my mother's. When I looked at the picture more carefully, and one of my 5th birthday, I had to agree that it was when I turned four that I got the Bible. 

How could I be so sure but be so wrong? I had a clear mental image of my mother's labeling on the back, and I thought I remembered the event so well. This points out that our memories are just memories, not necessarily an accurate depiction of what really happened. In this case, I think what I had done was combine my "memories" with labels from other pictures. And over the years, I reinforced my confusion until I was sure of the "facts."

There have been many studies about the accuracy of memories, and they have concluded that there can be problems. In general, the more sensory clues associated with the memory, the more likely it is to be accurate. However, a person can totally believe what they "remember" is true. Not necessarily that they were lying when facts prove them wrong. What does all of this mean? Well, not much in my case. Whether I was four or six when I got my Bible is of no consequence. But in serious issues such as trials or hearings, the complexity of memories should be considered.