More headlines I’d prefer not to see because there are WAY TOO MANY headlines I’d prefer not to see, but they keep on showing up, day after day after day. I do need to bring the renovation information up to date (no, it is NOT 100% done yet). It keeps raining and raining and raining and by now that, too, is a bummer. They are promising sunshine this weekend so perhaps reality will be a bit improved.
Was an Oklahoma Woman Killed By a Pack of Small Dachshunds?
And I thought the deer in our neighborhood were brazen.
Woman on antibiotics develops a ‘black hairy tongue’ in bizarre medical case
I regret deeply that I did actually click through on this and saw the picture. I have sworn off antibiotics.
The CDC is warning people to stop reusing and washing condoms
Sigh. Really, this shouldn’t have to be said. Ever.
Man Arrested for Having Sex with Injured Beaver
I WOULD have said “only in Florida”, but this happened in Washington state – a continent away from the usual totally bizarre behavior that gets reported on my less circumspect news feeds.
“Vampire facials” at New Mexico spa may have exposed customers to HIV
Gross. Totally ick. And as far as *I* am concerned – the only place to hang out with vampires would be in Bon Temps, LA.
Teenage Pageant Girls Who Kill and Skin Rattlesnakes
Yet another reason why Texas is NOT on the list of places I’d consider for my retirement. And this must also be why I did not win the beauty contest I was in at my swim club the summer I was 13 – I forgot my dead rattlesnake
Watch a Moth Suck the Tears Out of a Bird’s Eye, Because Nature Is Metal
I’m not sure I have any problem at all with the moth drinking the bird’s tears, that seems somewhat ‘cool’, actually. “Nature is metal”??? Not really liking that accolade.
There you go. This is the best I can muster for you after this week. There were some absolutely lovely moments during this week, but there were far too many more that belong in the “I’d rather not see/know/hear” category. On the other hand – I’ve just typed this up with a purring black cat in my lap. 🙂 There is much that is right in the world.
We’ve passed the home stretch – we’re down to only 4 things left for the contractors to do. The painter has more to do but I’ve told him we’re calling a stop at the end of this week. That should take complete the kitchen/breakfast room/front hall. The other things will happen later. I need a break!!!!
The under sink bins for garbage and recycling were installed. The lighting under the cabinets was installed (which includes zillions of electrical outlets along with the lights). The walls were painted and the wood was stained and I ordered art work for the kitchen. 🙂
The delay in the radiators is an amusing story. Kenny (the head plumber) called one of the places I’d found online and spent several phone calls chatting with the company. It turned out that despite their photo, they don’t have radiators that are floor-mounted, they are all wall-mounted. They can do the floor mount but it is a special order as opposed to out of standard stock. Kenny gave them all the specs, they were working out all the details, and then he gave them the shipping address. “Oh, we don’t ship to the US” they said. *laughing* Turns out he’d been talking with Canada the whole time and had not realized it. So he started over again looking for what I wanted. I hear that he did indeed find some (I saw a picture) but it’s unclear how long it will take to get the correct size and then get them installed. 
I know from my experience back in March, when I had to get a new furnace (or whatever it is called for hot water radiator heating), that once you install the radiators, you need to then fill them all with water. Then you need to bleed off any trapped air, and make sure they are all heating up. This is a whole day process. I hope they make it before the cold weather returns, or I’ll have to spend my entire life curled up on the rug in front of the gas-log fireplace.
The cold water filter under the sink was another case of miscommunication. Don came by one day and I went through my list of “open items and can we still do’s”. They had removed my cold water filter when they did the demolition way back in May (remember that?). I told them that they could toss the one that was there, we could put on a new one when we rebuilt everything. I mentioned this to Don and showed him what I wanted (some $30 thing you can get at the big box stores) and he said “oh, no, you can’t do that with your faucet”. What do I know, right? He showed me the kind of faucet I need to get and they’d drill a hole in the counter for it. Later when I tried to explain to my husband why I could not put in the cold water filter as we’d had before, I realized I had no idea why it wouldn’t work. I could see exactly where it would go under the sink. I found the installation instructions for what I wanted online, sent that and a picture of the pipes under the sink to Don, and asked why it would not work. 
Don is a professional. He does things the CORRECT way. From his perspective (and undoubtedly from MANY people’s pov) you do NOT put the filter on the cold water for the main faucet – you spin off the filtered cold water to a separate faucet, and then use the unfiltered cold water for whatever you do with unfiltered water. I HAVE filtered water and ice in my new refrigerator, which is also one of the reasons why Don was confused about my desire for a water filter on the sink. For many years now, many many years now, I’ve had a filter on the cold water, and every time I run the cold water I get filtered water. This is great if I am filling the cats’ automatic water fountain, or if I am filling a pot to boil pasta or whatever. But yes, it IS a waste if I’m pulling cold water while I’m washing dishes or some other rinsing activity. Many people think that is wasteful. I understand that perspective. 
MY pov is that it’s much easier and cheaper to stick the filter under the sink on the cold water, change the filter every 3-6 months for some nominal cost, than it is to install a whole-house filter or make a hole in my gorgeous counter or any of the other correct approaches. 🙂 Result – waiting for the plumbers to put in the under-sink filter on the cold water when they return. The cats will appreciate the clean tasting water. 
I have no idea what will happen with the deck lighting. I put this change order into the plans back in July, and nothing happened on it. I walked around the deck with Don a few weeks ago and explained what I wanted, and he said he understood and it would happen. Last time I saw the electricians they knew it was happening (that had not been the case on prior visits). It’s happening. But I don’t know what it will look like, when it will happen, nor what it will cost. 🙂 All I DO know is that I have a working switch in my kitchen that will turn on the deck lights once they exist. 
The “back” part of the title is that my sideboard – my gorgeous, wood, custom-made sideboard – has migrated from the dining room into the breakfast room. If you look at my “before” pictures you can see that it used to reside in the kitchen. It is now BACK in use in the breakfast room giving us additional counter and storage in that room. I have been worried that there would be too much wood in that room when both the sideboard and the bistro table were in, but I think it’s doing okay. That’s still my concern about adding the stools for the table. They are scheduled for delivery tomorrow. 🙂
The other major furniture migration was removing the old refrigerator from the dining room into the BACK of the garage. My sister has been in charge of disposing of old appliances. We both feel strongly about not adding to landfills so she has been posting them for sale on swap meets and such. I told her she can keep all the money as long as I don’t have to talk to any potential buyers. The first one we had (for the dishwasher) made me totally crazy, and I was in Arizona for part of that story. She is a prime example of why I don’t sell on the internet. If we can’t sell the refrigerator, I can get it moved out to the curb in October for the town’s bulk pick-up. 🙂 Always have a Plan B.
Although that refrigerator is MUCH larger than the old one, it has a completely different structure. For starters, I can tell that no one who designed it or used it or sold it drinks wine. I went to put an open, corked wine bottle in the fridge, and there was NO place sufficiently tall. I finally moved one of the door shelves up to what I think is a somewhat inconvenient location in order to fit the wine. Priorities! I did grocery shopping as well and discovered that I buy much more produce than those 2 (little) external drawers can handle. 🙂 There are 2 more internal drawers and I put them to good use too. I decided to put the “snack” fruits and veggies in the external drawers and put the “need to be prepared” vegetables in the inside drawers (lettuce, peppers, onions, etc.). I’m getting used to it. 
That is one of the stupidest things I’ve encountered. Why do I say this? Because my husband relied on the self-closing and I walked in to find the refrigerator open. I told him forget the whole concept and just shut the doors. I don’t even enjoy them on the cabinets, truth be told. That’s the problem with being old – you’re so used to doing things a certain way, that when newfangled conveniences come along you can’t appreciate them properly. So self-closing drawers don’t thrill me, but all the rest of the newfangled stuff is totally wonderful!!!
My first cup of coffee made in the new setup. 🙂 I’m not sure, however, that I’ll leave the pot there. It depends on where I have to place all of the other appliances. It’s amazing how many appliances we have accumulated that need electrical outlets. Microwave, toaster oven, food processor, mixer, phone, radio, and 2 coffee pots (one for him, one for me). I also need counter space for things that DON’T need outlets: sodastream, knife block.
Those pots are in good shape and there were not comparable pieces in the sets we were considering. We settled on the 
I’d looked at the instructions the night before, which caused a raging headache which led to yelling and misery. 🙂 I know – none of YOU have ever had a melt-down. The directions, although ostensibly in English, seemed extremely convoluted. In addition, there was a piece on the table base that did not appear in any picture I had of the completed table – not online, not in the directions. My husband was convinced he knew what it was and I thought he was probably correct, but it was making me crazy not to see it anywhere or have it mentioned anywhere. After repeated readings of the instructions, I finally realized where a different piece was “hidden” in the packing and things began to make a bit more sense. Lesson learned: don’t try to function when you are dehydrated and tired.
ANYWAY, I got up Saturday morning and put the table base together. Extremely simple. The table top is large and very heavy – it took the 2 of us to lift it, place it and turn it until it locked in place. I was surprised at the height of the completed table. It was several inches higher than I’d expected. I went back and began reading every review and all of the specifications for the table. I’d misread one of the measurements but I loved the table. The more I looked at it the less inclined I was to worry about the height. In fact, when I sat on the bay window seat, it was the perfect height for the table. I’ve been eating all my meals there! The more I looked, the more I loved. My husband loved it right from the start. I still worry that when we move the sideboard back into that room the overall effect of the 2 pieces will be too “heavy”. In the meantime I have ordered 2 counter height chairs for the table. And the electricians, who were here all day yesterday, also love the table. *grin* Which reminds me….
Bert, our neighbor, El Exigente, approves of the table. He came on Sunday to do his weekly critique. He told me he couldn’t find anything to criticize – he loved everything. *laughing* Of course he DID find things he didn’t like. He started in again about the blinds, expressed reservations about the wood color. He actually mentioned something that I thought was worth a follow-up but I can’t remember at the moment. The best part of his visit was that he annoyed my husband, who has always been amused at how annoyed all the rest of us get, but he himself is not annoyed. Until Sunday, when Bert got under HIS skin. LOVED IT! Schadenfreude for the win! 
Friday was a full house – the electricians and Tom returned. The rest of the cabinet hardware was installed and the spackling completed. The broken tiles in the front hall (from the old radiator) were removed. The workers were kind enough to bring in the 2 huge, heavy boxes with the bistro table – they were in the garage. And it DID take 2 people to lift one of those boxes. I’m very grateful they were kind enough to do that as my husband and I would have struggled and one of us would probably have gotten hurt. 
I think I’m fairly solid on them now but I do sometimes miss and use a ceiling fan switch instead of a light switch. All of the high hats are LED lights with dimmer switches. At the start of all our discussions, I told the electricians I did not need to have a ceiling fan with a light, so they did not need to put in a switch for the light, only the fan. Of course all of the fans I liked had lights. I said fine, I don’t care, you don’t have to worry about it if it can’t be hooked up. Apparently ceiling fans now all get operated by remote controls, and a remote will over-ride anything on a switch. I have a working light on my kitchen ceiling fan. It’s so much nicer than what was there before that I could see myself using it. But it’s a halogen bulb. Given that the LEDs can all dim, and they are much more energy-efficient than the halogens, that light may not get much use. 
The fan, however, has been running since it first had power. It will probably be on non-stop until November. 
Friday night when all was calm and quiet, my husband and I stood in the kitchen, loving it. We started playing the “where shall we put x?” game. “What goes in this cabinet?” We agreed that we would put the roll-out garbage can under the sink, along with the recycling can, which has been under the sink all the time. If I ever hear back from the foreman about the custom work in the broom closet, I’ll let him know. 
The day dawned early with the plumbers there before 8 am. I was lucky I was ready for them because I’d slept late that day. If they’d been any earlier or I’d slept longer, I might have had to leave them idling on the sidewalk. They began attaching water to the sink and refrigerator, and gas to the stove, and 
Tom came by soon after the plumbers to begin hooking up appliances, installing hardware and all sorts of other “putting things right”. I love love LOVE my cabinet knobs and pulls. That day’s big decision was where to situate the knobs on the various cabinets. I have no experience in this – I’ve never had a new cabinet without some sort of knob or pull. I started the morning thinking that every knob had to be situated in the exact same position on every cabinet. Tom assured me that these were my cabinets and I could do what I wanted. It’s very hard for me to visualize some of these smaller details. I went across the street to see if my neighbor Stephanie was home. She is an artist and has a great eye for placement (we both garden and I often check with her about placement of perennials). 
Luckily for me she was available and came back to look. She agreed with Tom that I could place the knobs in different areas on different cabinets, depending on where it felt natural to me to open the cabinet. She said it would look fine. Then she did something I would NEVER have considered: she rotated the knobs 90 degrees. Oh. Em. Gee. I LOVED that look. Not only did it give more space between adjoining knobs, but the new angle worked so much better with the tall slender cabinets. We did all of the knobs at that angle with the exception of the 2 roll-out spice cabinets, where a horizontal placement was better (and thanks to Tom for suggesting that). The knobs and pulls are worth every single penny. They are, I believe, hand-made for Schaub and Company: 
The pulls were a bit larger than I was expecting but that worked out beautifully as well. 🙂 SO HAPPY!!!!
and giving me an overview of 
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