Hump Day

Here it is Wednesday already, and I haven't accomplished much of anything this week. I am puting new veneer on my kitchen cabinets. I have all of the cabinet doors done, still need to do the drawers. It is kinda a big pain in the ass, but I am far enough along that I can see the end in sight.

I want to get the kitchen done before I go back on first shift, which is tentatively scheduled for April 18th, but we are going to Oregon to the beach for a week the 8th thru the 15th, so I have like a week to get done. I don't think I am going to make it unless I go all out this weekend.

I made a major tactical error with the cabinets.

I have this big old barn of a house (2850 sq. ft.) on three floors (Or two floors and a daylight basement if you prefer). The original structure was built in the late 30's, and a top floor was put on it in the 70s. The guy that did the rebuild didn't have the best materials or skills. It's not like it is in danger of falling down or anything, just that whenever I go to fix one thing, I find three of four other things that need to be fixed along with whatever I set out to do.

An example is the downstairs bathroom. My daughter Rose was taking a shower, when a portion of the shower surround fell in on her. It had pulled loosed from the wall, but when I looked at it, I couldn't just put it back on, because the wall behind it was rotting away. It had not been sealed properly around the edges, and water was working its way in behind the surround. At any rate, I had to section the wall up three feet all the way around, and put in a new shower surround. While I was at it, I put in a new mirror, vanity, replumbed the sink, rewired most of the bathroom, and put in new lighting fixtures. Three monthe an a couple of thousand dollars later, we got the full use of the bathroom back.

Then there was the upstairs bath. But that is a different story.

I was redoing the spare bedroom upstairs, when my lovely wife Carol and I got into a discussion about the kitchen. The kitchen cabinets were covered with this really cheap dark walnut vinyl. We hated the cabinets because they were so dark they just sucked the life out of the room.

I told her I would "reskin" the cabinets when I was done with the spare bedroom. She went "HUH?" so I said "You know, reveneer the cabinets." "HUH?" So I took her out and shower her a spot between two cabinets that had a 1" filler strip between the cabinets. She looked at it, grabbed the bottom, and tore it off of the cabinet. Next thing I knew she was out there with a putty knife and a hammer, and we had no veneer on the cabinets.

I called around and got some 10 mil white oak veneer, and a gallon of contact cement and started pulling the cabinet doors off one at a time, taking them down in the basement, reveneering them, bringing back up and remounting. The bad part is that the fumes from the contact cement are wickedly nasty. I was getting higher than a kite even with the basement doors wide open. I finally had to buy a high quality respirator. The high wasn't so bad, but the headaches afterwards were killer. Besides I probably don't have any brain cells to spare.

Some day I am going to learn when to keep my mouth shut.

Or maybe not.