7/1/2003 I have been working furiously on the house for the last couple weeks. My vacation is flying by as it ususally does. We got the new plumbing all hooked up and the new kitchen is up and running. So far I am really happy with the kitchen...the bathroom is another story. There are some space issues and I have little idea what to do about them. I designed it to include the washer and dryer but after we got them in there it started to feel a little cramped...so we're thinking that we might move them into the basement at some point later. In addition to that the medicine cabinet is kinda annoying me. We bought a mirror that is big but has no cabinet behind it; and now, due to the lights and the window and door, we have no place to put a medicine cabinet. I think I might go get some wood and make up a cabinet to go behind the mirror...I would need a piano hinge as well I guess.
I shouldn't be too negative; the shower is great, especially the tile, and the dishwasher is really great too. I haven't actually cooked anything significant yet...but I think it will be a lot easier when I decide to. Of course we still don't have the island, but that will just make things even better.
6/25/2003 Well, I wrote a whole entry for the website a week ago and it got erased when I neglected to save it and the computer crashed. Of course the computer crashed when Dory was using it so I am going to blame her for the whole thing.
I am a week into my seven week summer vacation and the house is consuming most of my time. I was hoping to be farther along than I am but I have finally finished all the tile work other than the mosaic that is going to be at the base of the stairs. Today the plumber came. I was hoping that they would be here much sooner and that it would only take a day to finish everything. Neither of those things is apparently happening. I got a great deal for the first time since we started buying materials for the house. I went to a salvage yard to find an old door for the bathroom which matches the rest of the doors in the house; I got the door and a latch set and doorknob for under fifty bucks. The door was actually only $15, but the doorknob was $25.
My brother is staying with us for a little while. He helped with the bathtub and countertop tile. I actually left to go to a bonsai club meeting one night and when I got home he had finished the grout in the bathroom...which was really cool since things don't usually get done when I'm not here. I had originally asked him to come up to help with the demolition of the back porch and the construction of the deck...but he ended up arriving early so he gets to help with all the little silly stuff.
I've been trying to find a way to turn the useless space underneath the lower section of our stairway into useful storage space...but I can't think of any way to get access to it without making the stairway dangerous to use. e.g. if the tread of the stair flipped up to reveal a cavity someone could leave it open and a person coming down the stair could fall in. If I had drawers coming our of the risers it would be pretty much the same thing. The only thing that I can think of is to have the whole thing flip up so that you couldn't get by it if it was up...which sounds really big and weird.
