Entry for April 03, 2006

Last week was a little more productive in the house. We purchased some unfinished oak floor bundles for making new counter tops. It's a lot cheeper than anything else anywhere. We assembled the first counter top for the long wall next to the stairs. It took two evenings to glue and clamp a few rows at a time. Everything went together fairly tight with only two minor gaps due to a little bow in the boards. Over all we are both pleased with the results. Gin will stain them Golden Oak and then apply a few coats of a poly satin finish. We will provide several cutting boards in specific locations for protection once in place.

I also patched the section of wall where the old divider wall was between the kitchen and dining room. The short section of wall on the kitchen side was out about 1/2 inch from the dining room side. It was an easy fix by cutting the nails at the top and bottom of the first stud and hammering it flush with the dining room studs. A few 3 inch screws later the wall was secure and the patch was applied.

I crawled under the house again Saturday morning and set up three concrete cinder block pillars to support a new 2" x 8" beam. This took out the majority of the 1" sag in the middle of the kitchen floor. I used a car jack under the new beam to raise the floor. After a few shims and some minor adjusting of supports, everything worked well. Now I feel better about having the fridge in that part of the kitchen. We celebrated the succesfull day by endulging in a Denny's breakfast for dinner. It's been a while since I ate that much breakfast.

I spent Sunday morning removing the old insulation from a bove the kitchen and dining room ceiling (in the attic). Once I removed all the fiberglass rolls, I bagged all the blown in loose insulation. I still need to sweep up all the debris that was left behind by the roofers when that work was done for the previous owner. All the gritty debris makes its way down through the gaps in the old bead board ceiling. I will probably get the rest up one evening this week.

We spent the rest of Sunday afternoon with Patrick, Jessica and friends for their wedding couples shower. Couples shower? Yes, now the trend is to have a couples shower instead of a bridal shower. The groom gets some gifts in the new era. The shower was held at a large church in Greer, where Patrick and I managed to slip away for a little father vs. son basketball in the gym. I did pretty well for an old man. It would have been worse if I was still lugging around that spare tire.

This week and next weekend will be geared toward more kitchen work with the goal to have the cabinets leveled and set. I may even get started on making the new sink cabinet. You'll have to wait for next week's blog for the results.
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