Carpenter, We Don't Need No Stink'in Carpenter

Well after being told three times by the carpenter that our windows would get put in the end of next week we decided to take things into our own hands. Well the capable hands of Ron anyway. Over a beautiful fall weekend we managed to tear out the old windows, frame in and hang the new ones, tear up the kitchen floor, and tear down the remaining plaster in the kitchen. Daisy enjoyed the day in the sun.

Kelly and I were busy over the past couple weeks destroying more of our house. The really fun part of the remodel is the fun we get to have living out of the family room. As the pictures show, before we tore out the kitchen walls we moved everything we had into the family room. The tv stand is now the counter, holding the microwave, coffee maker, and other things. We took down the roof of the soon to be kitchen and the wall that seperates the two rooms.

Doesn't the new refridgerator look great. Thanks John.

I forgot, Gatsby's cage is also in the kitchen/living room/storage room. Despite all of this we have still found time for the finer things. Like Garrett's Cheese Popcorn (on top of the refridgerator)

The view from current living room to the current kitchen. The stove is now on the back porch

The view from the other side.

After finally getting in touch with the carpenter and him saying for the third time that he wouldn't be able to get to our windows till the end of next week we decided to move on without him. We asked if Ron was interested in giving it a go. He was so excited he jumped on a bus in Kzoo and took a 4 plus hour odyssey through the back roads of Michigan and Indiana to Chicago's Union Station. I picked him up around 1 am on Friday morning. Good times. Friday, we awoke to a wonderful fall day and got started. We managed to pull out both old windows, take down some stucco, and frame and hang the new ones.

The large windows that were on the south wall of the dinning room. GONE.

The smaller windows in the back wall. GONE

The new casement windows that replaced the large window on the south wall. Soon, the sink will be centered under this window.

Level yet!!!

I held the window over my head while Ron decided if we were level yet. Actully, I didn't. Instead, we got it level on the first try.

The new windows in the back of the house. Soon a table will be under these so we can look out and watch the dogs in the backyard.

Things were going so well that we decided to take up the floor in the kitchen as well. For those of you counting at home, there was a layer of linoleum, a subfloor, a plywood subfloor, a layer of linoleum, then the original hardwood. The long scrapper tool was pretty handy but a lot of this was done with a hammer and a chisel. The picture shows the second layer of linoeum and the original floor.










So tomorrow, if I manage to crawl out of bed, the ceiling in the current kitchen will come down and the destruction part of the job will be complete. Our cabinets are scheduled to be delivered on Thursday and hopefully we will be able to get our plumber over to do that work. Let's keep our fingers crossed.