Stupid drawer

I do not believe my kitchen was designed by a woman. The clearance between the counter and the cabinets is 11 1/2 inches. I can't fit the coffee pot under there nor the kitchen aid mixer. There is no triangle, I have a huge deep corner that has no end and I would get lost in. There is no place to put a lazy susan for canned goods. Weird weird cabinet layouts....and then there's this drawer. Once the stove is in place you can't open the damn thing unless the stove door is open. It drives me nuts because it would be the perfect kitchen gadget drawer, but it ends up being the crap drawer!
Ughhhhh...
And no, I didn't get much besides cleaning and grocery shopping done on this crappy raining day. Oh wait! I did mop all the leftover lead chips off the front porch!

Rain Rain Go Away

Of course the one weekend in two months my dear hubby has off of work it has to rain. I had such grand plans too! Get the back entrance stripped down, it's peeling like mad, (and I think there's rotten wood there), and work on the outside windows. But no, mother nature wants to water the flowers and give the farmers some rain. Oh well. Let's clean the inside of the house today...kids get out the scrub buckets!

Showers are nice

The one thing I probably miss the most is my shower. Not that we don't have one in this house, but it's in the basement two floors down from the bedrooms. When we moved in, the only bathroom in the house had a pedestal sink, toilet, and an original 1985 jacuzzi bathtub. Now we are in the process of updating the bathroom. While I'd like to stay true, the pedestal sink went bye-bye. I have two small kids and one teenager, I need storage space. So we have installed a double vanity sink, but the shower is still in the basement.
I used to enjoy showers, probably too much if you asked hubby, but now I have it down.
Every morning at 5am I get up before the little ones, go downstairs, let the dogs out, get the parrots up, go down into the basement pull the two shower curtains my husband jerry-rigged together so the teenager in the basement, (who is doorless) can't see anyone nude, and take a quick shower. Quick get dressed, pick up after the dogs on my way back upstairs. Make sure the 2yr old hasn't started the house on fire yet, and finished getting ready for work.
I really miss my shower. I miss putting on lotion right after a shower, I miss taking a shower in a bathroom.
One day, hopefully one day soon.....

Windows windows windows

I know it seems all I talk about is windows, but that is my major concern lately.
This problem started the day we moved in. Let me first say I know my husband loves me. And I love him... dearly. He puts up with a lot from me... and me, well I put up with ... We've managed to stay married for almost ten years now and had already done some major remodeling to our old house. However the day we moved into this house, it was not a smooth one.
One Issue we had was the refrigerator.
My parents had bought us a refrigerator for Christmas one year. One of those neat bottom freezer ones when they first came out. Since I have two parrots that eat a of fresh foods I like a big fridge, so of course I got the biggest I could.
When we looked at the house I took measurements, knowing my fridge needed to fit into the space given...right? I measured 36" and my fridge is 36", great I thought. But I never measured the doorways.
So my dear, sweet, patient husband who had been moving for two days straight figured out the hard way he couldn't get the fridge through the door. Off comes the doors, after much swearing and banging into the trim. Then into the kitchen. But wait I forgot about the window sill. The fridge won't fit. So the refrigerator was in the middle of the kitchen until hubby decides to fix the problem...with a saw.
It's not pretty.












But now I need ideas how we can fix this?
Please???

Stripping paint

Okay I'm the first to admit I'm a newbie to the house fixer upper world. In fact, if you would have told me ten years ago that I would have been excited to restore my windows sills, I would have laughed my hiney off at you.
Sweetheart, that just ain't my thang. Thank you very much, drive on thru.
But today in between 13 screaming six year olds there I was trying to scrape god-only-knows-how-old paint off of wooden storms and exterior sills. (Since the previous owners replaced the windows 20 years ago, but kept the original storms and screens.) And that my friend is a SUCKY job. Those people who do it for a living? Well they don't get paid nearly enough. We had some good paint stripper, well at least according to my hubby. But still. Man oh man. I think I may be canceling our summer vacation, sorry kids, and buying a silent paint remover. We got one storm halfway done and just started on a set of exterior sills. I'll try to post some pics tomorrow. (Maybe I'll have more progress then...ha ha ha ha.)
But I think we have settled on one thing... We are going paint the exterior sills white and the storms and screens of the windows a dark burgundy color. Where did I come up with color you might ask? Well I found it on one old old window that was left in the basement. I think it will make a nice accent color. Then we might also paint the door that color.

Soy-Gel

Has anyone used it? I'm sure anxious for the weekend to get here to break it open! I've been itching to try it on our lovely door frame with sixteen layers of paint. Then the window sills.....then we'll see how much we have left!

Well the list grows

When we bought this house we just had a short list of things to do. That list has grown in size, a lot. Our new project, once the bathroom is done, is to get rid of the lead paint around the exterior window sills.
With young children under the age of 6 in the house, it's a scary task. But one that has to be done. So I have a gallon of Soy-Gel coming and we will tackle the task, maybe this weekend after my daughter's birthday party. Fun fun fun.