In my house, the list of Reno projects is a long one. After the first year or two of home ownership, I have kinda got complacent about some of them. My kitchen and my bathroom both need such major demos that I have just ignored them figuring that because I don’t have the budget to do it right so I wont do it at all. But in order to keep sloth from completely enveloping my life, fate sometimes intervenes. This time fate entered the minds of the termites that nibbled on the porch that was built off of my kitchen.
After the exterminators were done I called in a handyman to fix the damage of my ugly porch. I am paraphrasing but he basically said “if it is ugly why not just tear it down” to which I replied “I just spent over $1000.00 having the roof fixed and it adds square footage to my property value” he responded “I can keep your roof and your square footage and get rid of the rest, providing a view to the backyard and no more ugly”. My end of the deal is that I have to dig up the raspberry bush, go to Home Depot, buy a Rubbermaid shed, Assemble said shed, move all the crap from the porch to the shed, and then VOILA…..thehandymandan comes in. Knocks out the walls puts in a nice ceiling some lighting and a deck and all of a sudden I have a nice backyard to look into from my kitchen (the shed assembly while not easy has an end result that went well).
It seems silly typing this, but I really enjoy standing at the kitchen counter in the morning, pouring my morning coffee and enjoying a view of….not closed curtains or a shelf of garden tools….but the serenity of my backyard with my nice new shed, the skeletal frame of my plane tree (I name her Plane Jane) and the lilac bushes (severely pruned by my brother, who is forgiven because he help assemble the shed) and the occasional neighborhood Tom Cat coming around to visit my (spayed) girls. Only to be hissed and spat at from the other side of the glass doors. Thehandymandan has changed my life, not only in the value of not only my porch but of my kitchen. I suddenly LIKE being there. (Except for the crazy color scheme)
Aside from thehandymandan, I also had the windows in the house replaced. I admit that I was manipulated by the government of Canada promise of a tax rebate to do this, but once I had a new patio door looking out onto the backyard it became apparent to me that it was time to….PAINT THE KITCHEN. The previous coat of paint was induced by a weekend marathon of Trading Spaces which ended with red diamonds painted on a background of a yellow that can only be compared to rain boots. The only change in color selection that I have done since then has been in the living room where I chose the colors of diaper contents baby crap green with baby crab yellow accent. (Which after two years I still like). The kitchen is off the living room so I headed off to Home Depot to look at paint chips in the baby crap blue tones. Ends up babies don’t crap blue. But for some reason I had my heart set on blue (scary cause I vaguely remember having my “heart set” on yellow before the rain slicker yellow of the last time that I did this)
Moving on… I was smitten with blue in the “casual” chip. After painting one wall I remembered that I had watched The Handmaidens Tale on TV the night before and was wondering if that had influenced my decision. Was my kitchen going to look like “serenity now” or worse a nursery for a baby boy? Humm even so it was better than the “Trading Places” mess….I moved on.
Painting always takes longer than it should. A week later the paint is done, the “cucumber green” accent takes away from the nursery look, the new curtain finial and the white draping curtains over the patio doors give a “soft” look. (I have not given up on the designing TV shows). I have replaced the old ugly ceiling tiles with new ugly ceiling tiles. In a last minute ditch I ran out to Canadian Tire on Jan 31 and bought a new ceiling fan (receipt available for revenue canada).
When I removed the existing light fixture I found that (yet again) the guy that lived here before me did a lot of his own home Reno’s and they are not to code. I am waiting for an electrician to come in and fix up the wiring an install the ceiling fan. *sigh*. Also in the painting I realized that BIG ugly in the kitchen is that the cupboards need to be painted (I have some vacation coming in March). But aside from living in the semi dark while waiting for an electrician and semi sanded cupboards., the kitchen is done….for now and I can get back to blogging….and other important things (like calling India to fix my router so I can add pics of my semi new kitchen)
Later
D
