There are No Small Projects

Well, Rob and I decided to embark on our first real home project. Okay, maybe it's not our first, since Rob did enclose the sump pump downstairs--created a room with a door. But his father helped us with that one, so it doesn't quite count. Our house is older (built in the late 1940's), but in pretty good shape. So we've been able to get away with re-arranging and/or mending what was already in place, and this has been sufficient. We've changed the space, made it our own, but we've done nothing even as drastic as changing a paint color.

But I've been in project mode lately, as I've mentioned before. And our kitchen is a prime target for a project. Probably 2 years ago I picked out a paint color for the kitchen. A dark-ish blue that would highlight and compliment the white and black (with red accents) retro tile and countertop really well. And then, true to form, I kept the color swatch and put the project on hold.

Then Rob and I decided that we should take out the wall between our kitchen and dining room. It's an idea we've tinkered with before, but we've never been able to put all the details in place before, so we've never done it. Painting a room a different color is one thing, but taking out a wall is another altogether. What if we don't really like it? Oops?

And then a friend came over and walked us through what he would do. Wasn't pushy about it, just gave us a few more ideas. Met a few of the concerns I'd come up with. And after he left, I looked at Rob and said, "That's it!" Project on.

Of course this will all take a lot of time. Our friend promised us that this is a "small project", "not a big deal" and it "won't take very long." We look at him and say, "Umm, we don't DO home projects. For us, painting our bathroom is a big deal." (This is true, but another story altogether.) Hence, this project is HUGE, uber-complicated, and will take way way too long.

Taking out the wall will require us to change lots of little things. Moving a heating vent. Re-wiring 2 light switches. Moving/removing the stove's fan thing. Re-wiring the outlet on the other side of the kitchen for the stove. Being careful about the fabulous tile (some of it irreplacable, since you can't find it any more).

Rob looked at me like a deer in headlights as I talked excitedly about how fun this would all be! I reassured him by saying we could start small and simple. We'd start with the first part of the project, conceived 2 years ago: painting. No problem. Doesn't matter how long we take. We can live with unpainted walls for a long time with no inconvenience other than seeing a project half-finished. I happen to LIKE half-finished projects, though--they're so beautiful--so we were SET.

Saturday night we started taking down wall paper. Of course, when we did so, we found a spot on the ceiling that needed some attention. The plaster was buckled a little in one spot. Kind of like what you'd see if there was water damage, just without the discoloring you'd see if it was water damage. I was pretty confident this would be no big deal. Rob lightly hit the plaster with his fist and a section came falling down, revealing nasty black mold running under our cabinets.

Our wall, minus the knick knack shelf and some wall paper. If I was worried about how the dark blue would work, I worry no more. It can't look worse than pink.

Rob said, "There are no simple projects. The first thing I learned from my Dad doing home projects is that they're never simple, and they take way longer than you thought."

Note that replacing our cabinets was NOT on our to-do list with remodeling the kitchen. They're old school kind of art deco in style and they're GORGEOUS, I think. We can update, but update away the fantastic style? I think not!

One of our two cabinets. Love the style. Love the hardware. Love, love, love.

It was almost 11:30 p.m. by the time we found this problem. So we cleaned up and went to bed. The next day I told Rob, "Sorry it's Sunday, but you need to take that cabinet down and take care of the mold." Mold is nasty.

Suddenly our slow, simple painting project was in hyper-speed. I left to go Visiting Teaching for a few hours while Rob took down the cabinet. When he took it down, the ceiling over it fell, all of it covered in mold. So the cabinet is dead, since Rob trashed it taking it down, and the whole top of it was covered in mold anyway. The ceiling is dead. ... So, the space where the ceiling and cabinet were looked like this:

Of course it gets better.

That night a friend called. Bryon. Normally I leave my friends nameless in my blog, but this time Bryon came out as a hero, so I want to mention him by name. So Bryon just dealt with a HUGE mold problem in his house. Became a mold expert of sorts. He called because we'd mentioned in passing the mold we'd found. He told us we'd want to be careful and not mess with the mold until we'd set up saftey precautions, etc. He became alarmed when we told him we'd already taken down the cabinet and ceiling. But the problem areas are mostly gone now. There is some mold on the rafters, but not extensive damage. He said he'd be right over with all his supplies.

So Bryon shows up at 9:30 p.m. and stays for over an hour assessing damage with Rob. He said he'd come back the next day and bring us some heavy duty stuff to kill mold.

Well, he came back, but he came ready to work. We thought he was just going to drop it off. Heck, that's all we would have done. But he came with a change of clothes and stayed for hours helping Rob tear down the other cabinet and ceiling. And he scrubbed the heck out of those rafters. He stayed until 10:30 p.m. The whole time a country song kept running through my head: "You find out who your friends are." Bryon, you're amazing.

Before he'd arrived, Rob had climbed into the attic to assess the damage: see if there was any more mold. Nope! Yea! Rob also climbed onto the roof and fixed the world's smallest hole--the source of the moisture in the first place. The rubber seal surrounding the pipe had a tiny gap in it.

As an aside: Did you know that if you don't use caulking for long enough it will solidify into a solid, still in the tube? Pretty neat, huh?

Anyways. As of right now, the hole in our kitchen looks like this:

It's not a very good picture, but you get the idea.

I apologized to Rob for the scope and speed of this project. I told him we were supposed to start slow! But now that the cabinets are down and we need to buy/build new ones, we might as well do the whole project as quickly as possible. I like to say, though, "Well, it'll be great to have a kitchen 7 months from now!" Rob says, "You do realize it might take that long, right? To get it all done." Right-o!

Here's to home projects!!!