Will He Or Won't He?

I called my drywall contractor yesterday after work to see why he didn't show on Tuesday night. Apparently it is his phones fault. He set his phone remind him and it didn't. He did say he was sorry. He says that he is going to come over tonight to do what should have happened on Tuesday. When I asked if he was still planning on coming over to do the work on Saturday he said definitely.

I wish I could blame an inanimate object for all of the things I forget to do. For instance I cannot for the life of me remember to start the dishwasher. I keep thinking that I'll start it before I leave for work, but then I don't. See it's not my fault. The dishwasher really should remind me that it needs to be run.

Oh and if you were wondering why I don't just start it when I am home, it's loud and my place is so small it's tough to watch TV while it's running. See I have my priorities in order who needs clean dishes as long as you can watch Pushing Daisies, Biggest Loser and Chuck without interruption.

I really am rather lame huh? Oh well at least I remembered to take out the garbage and recycling today. Small victories.

A Bad Start to the Drywall

The Drywall contractor was scheduled to stop by last night to measure for the molding on top of the half wall. He didn't show. I'm hoping beyond hope that when I call him later he has a fantastic reason for not following through.

Is it stupid of me to still hope that he shows on Saturday to do the work?

Dang hiring people sucks.

My Searching Sunday

The weather this weekend was amazing. I tried to take full advantage of it on Sunday by running around looking for furniture.

I started off by visiting Standy's Unfinished Furniture where I found two tall dressers and I'm hoping that one of them might be perfect for my bedroom. Then into Fremont were I dropped in Capers, Portage Bay Goods, the Fremont Antique Mall and Starbucks for a Chai. Then off to the Fremont Sunday Market where I looked for more furniture. After scouting all of the market I moved northwest toward Ballard stopping at HomeSite along the way.

Once I made it to Ballard I realized that they were having their own Farmers Market which made parking in Ballard a bit difficult for a Sunday. Of course parking in Ballard is always a challenge now that it is the new hip spot to shop in the city. I walked up and down Ballard Ave and stopped in at Space Oddity Vintage Furniture, the brand new Skarbos Furniture, Collective, Enlighten, Greener Lifestyles, and Ballard Home Comforts along the way.

At Ballard Home Comforts I found this ADORABLE little bag that jumped into my hand and just had to come home with me. I'm in love with it. I'm sure from the picture you can tell why.




Before heading back home I went to Lowes because I had to get paint swatches for the living room and bathroom. WARNING Paint Chip overload below. Living Room options are on the Left and Bathroom on the Right.

As you can see I'm thinking of a grey of some sort for the living room. In the bathroom I want to go with something a bit more calm than what I put in there and something that matches the slate more. So I'm thinking of a peach/orange. The picture doesn't do justice to how awful the current yellow looks. It's bright and obnoxious.

In the end I found a bag that I had to have and maybe a tall dresser for the bedroom. That doesn't help me decorate my living room now does it?

Molly & Photoshop I Owe You One

Since I didn't take a picture of the living room/kitchen wall before all of the destruction took place I took some pictures of the next best thing last night. Molly's place is the mirror image of mine and she was nice enough to let me intrude so that I could have complete photo documentation of the Before and After.

Here are the "real" Before (with the magic of Photoshop working a mirror image flip for me):


I find it odd that the wall color looks so different in these two pictures. I swear it's the same space just from to vantage points. It is a bit eerie to see these two images, knowing that they weren't taken from my house and feel like they just had to have been. Molly is it weird for you too?

Up soon are the final images of my "wall" remodel. I met with a drywall contractor last night. I'm going to let go of the project at this point and actually pay someone to finish it off. He's going to also fix other imperfections in some adjoining walls while he's there. And he's even going to put the molding on the half wall. Keep your fingers crossed that it will all be done by next weekend!

When I say final images I really don't mean final because then I'll have to paint the living room, and repaint the kitchen wall. But "Close enough for government work", as my dad always says. Then again he also always says "Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades." So it depends on which of his -isms that I choose to pay attention to. Given my slightly OCD nature I have a feeling that I will not be truly happy until the couch has arrived, which barring any unforeseen issues should be some time in mid-late November. Until then I'll have to be happy with progress for progress sake.

Some day I'll get around to putting up Before and After images of my bathroom too. But since I hate the color I painted it I'm going to withhold those for a while.

The Wall Was No Match For Me!

It's gone daddy gone!!!
The wall is gone.

And now for the action shots. Well, not exactly action but the middle steps anyway.

This is the remains of the wall and the view without it.

A few shots showing just the header from the kitchen and living room.

Before and AFTER!!!!!!!!

Now who's proud of me?? I am!!!

The Sawzall is coming!

My boss is supposed to be bringing in his Sawzall today. I really hope he remembers. I really want to take down that wall tonight. It will be so great to have that out of the way.

Then I need to figure out where to get some small strips of drywall to patch the ceiling of the new opening. Do you suppose I should just scavenge at building sites? I suppose that's technically illegal but I really only need the smallest amount of drywall. There is no way that I'm going to buy an entire sheet for such a small job. That would be so wasteful.

I also need to figure out what color I want to paint the living room. I was thinking blue but now I'm leaning toward a warm grey. Haven't been to Home Depot or Lowe's in a few weeks so it's about time for another trip. Oh and that silly little crown molding needs to come down too.

All of my grand plans center around getting that wall down. Cross your fingers for me that it won't fall on my head.

Oh so tired and puzzled

This weekend was Puzzle Hunt 11. Of course I had a great time but today I am painfully tired. I even went home and slept for 4 hours on Sunday morning. Several other members of my team didn't sleep at all so I really have no right at all to be moaning about how tired I am. But there you have it, I am MOANING! Compounding the issue is that my head is full up with all sorts of nasty snot.

I really do enjoy all of the puzzle solving so I wouldn't give it up just because of how I feel today. It's really invigorating to be working your brain like that for an entire weekend. This was my second time playing in a Puzzle Hunt. I've also done a couple of other events and beta tests of events. The format of Puzzle Hunt is so far my favorite.

During the weekend you spend the majority of your time in a conference room at Microsoft but there are always puzzles that take a few team members out to various spots on campus as well. I think it's the home base (or HQ) with small excursions style that I like the most about this event. Every time I feel like I need a change of scenery to restart my head there is something that I can go out and accomplish. Something to get the blood flowing again. Some times pulling yourself away from a puzzle that you've been pouring over and distracting yourself with something else entirely is the best way to solve the first puzzle.

The other great thing about this event, at least with the team I've played with, is that everyone has their strengths but it is truly a collaboration. I can't even tell you how many puzzles were solved by having nearly every member of the group take a look at them and add their ideas. It seems like most of us saw nearly all of the puzzles at some point or other. I think there were about 60 or so puzzles which is a HUGE amount.

I know that our finish place was disappointing for the team but we were two people down all weekend and 3 people down all of Sunday. So I'd say we completely held our own and I'm very glad that I was able to be there again with them.

Thanks guys and gal for inviting me in again and making me welcome. I hope to be invited back again next time.

I'm so full of ..... Good Ideas!!

At least that's what I'm telling myself. So there.

My newest idea involves finding a bench to use as my new TV cabinet. The one I have is too deep to use where I want to move it. I'm also going to have to get a new LCD TV to fit in the new space. It's a sacrifice but I think I'll make it through. The look I'm going for is something like this Bjorna bench from Ikea.

It has an upholstered top so I'm not sure if it will work. It seems to fulfill my other requirements which are narrow, low, long (17 3/4" D X 19 5/8" H X 53 1/2" L), cost effective ($199), and has a bottom shelf to hold the DVR and DVD players.

Then there is my other idea which I stole from a table that Doug made for Britten and Brooke. He got a hydraulic barber chair lift and attached a table top to it. I'd like to do the same thing except figure out a way for the table top to have drop leaves. I want the table to be small and short enough to serve as an end table but also have the option of turning into a dining table. Since my place is so small I don't have enough space to have a dining area but having this Transformer table would give me an option to have a table when I want it. I mean who wouldn't want a table that's more than meets the eye!

I think that's all of my good ideas for now. Perhaps I'll have another inspiration tonight. You never know what can come out of this little brain of mine.

The sawzall of my dreams - FREE!

My boss owns a Sawzall and is going to bring it in so that I can borrow it to remove the evil wall. That means I don't have to rent one and I can use it at my leisure. Wahoo!

I spent a little bit of time last night pulling down a bit more of the drywall and learned that the HUGE header over the door isn't one piece of wood. It's three pieces put together.

This new discovery makes me feel a lot better about taking out the doorway. It was confusing and concerning me that the header was so hefty looking. Made me feel like the doorway just had to be holding up an important part of the house. That seems much less likely now.

Can't wait for the real destruction to begin. Bring on the Sawzall!!!!

Things that make you go....Clueless

I have no idea if the header and little wall in between the living room and kitchen can come down. I am not a structural engineer, in case you didn't realize, but I do have a more than basic understanding of home building, structural support and plain old physics. But none of these "skills" are helping me to determine if that wall can be attacked by a sawzall.

On Sunday morning I went into the attic to take pictures of the area above the kitchen and found this.

Left: View from the attic access toward east end of house. The double beam in the picture is above the wall between the kitchen and living room.

Right: This is a close up view of the far end. The end of that beam sits directly above the kitchen door. Those 2 x 4 's going up from that beam don't actually attach to the roof rafters and some of them don't even reach the roof sheeting. What does that beam do exactly?

Any structural engineers in the audience? This gal as mentioned before is clueless.