A Little Cabinet Update & Notes from the Heart

Just a note to say we are chipping away at our cabinet project. We've finished the inside of two cabinets and have another coat of red to put on the shelves. I cleaned and sanded the corner cabinet in order to start painting it today. Wow, it's amazing how much gunk comes off a surface when you use degreaser. I thought my cabinets were clean, but I was wrong!

Yesterday Zoe and I did a little Goodwill hunting and found a few treasures. I found a few earthy baskets to add to my growing little collection, a giant wreath, a cool frame, and a sweet little urn/vase. I'll try to take some photos soon.

There is a thread going on at the Cottage Living forums about what we are least proud of concerning our home decorating/renovating. It's been a depressing last couple of weeks, thus very easy for me to focus on the negative. Here's what I wrote:

I have been *so* depressed over the state of my totally undone home. I was out of town this weekend and stayed with family and while there, I was just in total awe and envy being in a completely put together, nice, clean home. Everything there so neat and organized...and did I mention clean????

Here, we are pretty much living on a construction site. We remudded the walls in the living room and kitchen and we're still trying to get the drywall dust off the surface of everything. Our kitchen floor is old beat up and scuffed up linoleum. We will be ordering hardwood floors within the month, so we're not going all out to clean up every paint drip and drywall mud plop. Have I mentioned that we ripped out our living room/hallway carpet last spring? I was having major allergy problems and it just had do go. Good thing - I don't even want to think about all the dust that would have settled into it. Even so, we've been living with painted plywood floors (painted to seal them so the kidlets wouldn't get splinters). Black,of all colors (it was cheap oops paint). Like our old linoleum, it has tons of paint splatters, too, and just looks dirty. We have a corgi and beagle who are constantly shedding - and the hair really shows up on the black plywood - and I sweep everyday. Even though we're ordering floors soon, that doesn't mean we're putting them down soon. Hubs wants to get the major painting projects finished before we put down our flooring.

Hmm, should I continue, lol?! Our bathroom is completely gutted now save for the tub, (thank goodness for the tub!). We want to get our living room and kitchen wrapped up before putting the bathroom back together. It feels so icky being in there...no drywall, one lonely light, plywood flooring, plastic sheets protecting the yet to be tilled tub surround...*sigh* We had to move the bathroom door down 10 inches to keep it from hitting the toilet in it's new location, which means that we have more drywall work to do in the hallway, too.

Apparently, the way this house was built, the only thing keeping the door casings in place is the trim around the door. We're replacing ALL the trimwork in the house (it was built nearly 30 years ago with cheapy trim). We took much of the trim off most of the doors when we mudded the walls. Last night, our coat closet door and part of the casing literally just came crashing down out of place due to the lack of trim around it (now revealing all the clutter within). *Ack!* A far cry from the nice, peaceful, SAFE home that I stayed at while out of town this weekend.

There is so much left to do in this whole house remodel and sometimes it's so hard for me to focus on what we have accomplished. I'm terrified that someone will stop by just to visit, lol. I know exactly where I'm headed with this renovation and what it will look like when it's complete , it's just a tough getting there!

Let me add to that that my little girls have the most boring, unimaginative bedrooms ever. Beds and dressers. Since we'll be replacing trim and remudding the walls in those rooms, too (and because we're so busy with the rest of the house), I've put off doing anything nice. We truly do have a long road ahead of us here. I wish I could snap my fingers and it would all be done but I know that's just crazy talk. One thing that keeps me going is knowing that the longer that I whine and lament over being in the middle of this tedious remodel, the longer it will take to complete it. It also helps to know that every little bit of work that we do here (however slow the progress) is important and is one step closer to the final result.

What is important is that my kids are healthy and happy and seem to be pretty much unaffected by all the chaos and general state of ickiness our house is in right now. When I was growing up, my parents did a major remodel which I'm sure took many months (funny I don't remember how long it took). I do remember at some point having to wash dishes in a plastic bin on the floor because the new cabinets and sink was not yet installed. But that's about all I remember. Makes me wonder how much my girls will remember about this remodel????

Months ago, I promised the girls an End of the School Year party this summer. Looks like we may be looking for an alternate location, lol. There's a new park in town...maybe there?

Well, I better find an activity for the ZoeMiester to work on while I start painting again. Love to all:)