Hope everyone had a good productive weekend like we did!

So after long hours of research and scouring the web, I purchase two non-toxic and hypo allergenic pure beeswax candles from Bluecorn Naturals.   This company had some different choices when it came to the types of beeswax candles, but I decided on the raw beeswax. These have a  high burning point which give the candles long burning times, they burn completely clean, and still retain the sweet honey scent. The website has much more information, and I suggest that you research on your own to find out which candles are right for you!

ps. I HATE PACKING PEANUTS!!!! They are such a waste of space!

The job started yesterday and didn’t get finished till this evening. Every time we thought we were making headway, 2-3 hours would fly by trying to figure out what was wrong. First problem for example occurred when I cut a hole in the wall the size of a single gang box. Soon as I busted through the plaster wall a plethora of what I thought was walnut shavings come pouring out of the wall. Imagine a waterfall of foam pellets falling out of the wall nonstop and you’ll have an idea of what it looked like. After filling up 4 trash bags worth (52 gallons) we put a ton of paper up in the hole to stop the flow of “insulation” from leaving out house.

The second problem happened when we wanted to run wire for the rear left surround. Being that the wall was an outside wall normally wouldn’t be a problem, but how they built the house was the problem. We have an old HVAC unit and the way one air return was done, they nailed sheet metal to two floor joists which form a canal and then trunk it off from there. For us to run our wire down the wall and into the basement we’d have to remove a portion of the sheet metal, drill a hole up, and then fish the wire. Well, ended up being that the edge of the wall in the basement wasn’t the outside wall, but the inside wall. Seems that the outside walls of the house are 2×6 and not 2×4, since we were already battling sheet metal and our HVAC unit we declared defeat and routed on the back inside wall.

Third problem crept up while installing the right rear surround speaker. Turned out to be a cross beam that was placed about 3 inches above the baseboards and was blocking our path to run the wire. So, we decided to break out some plaster and route the speaker wire around the board. This worked out very well since plaster is so thick and all we have to do now is put a blank wall plate over it (spackling comes later).

Now mind you, these are plaster walls that we’re talking about. So no matter how careful you are with your cutting, it’s going to chip in chunks whether you want it too or not. Plus since drywall is a joy compared to plaster, installing an electrical box becomes a challenge (due to slats and plaster).

So we have everything installed and now we want to do our faux stucco more than ever, because of how shitty the area’s look around the outlets.

Oh well, pics to come later and we’re well on our way to getting familiar with all areas of this house. Hell, I’m just happy 2 walnuts came out of the wall this time instead of the 6 gallons worth.

There was one victim among us during this whole story and that was the ole pups. Poor fella, didn’t get all the lovin’s that he usually gets for the day.

Darryl found this in the glass section. WTF??? Who would buy a used Vlasic Pickle jar???? Who collects that stuff???

It’s a pretty good range. So far! It’s been almost 20 years since I last cooked with gas and today’s experience was good. It’s funny, for our first meal it was Darryl’s (aka, great hot sandwiches). Dinner for tomorrow will be chicken marsala, steamed broccoli, and penne pasta. I’m gonna work on reducing the marsala wine to make it thick and syrupy. Anyway, back to the range. It’s a Whirlpool Gold (GFG471LVS) model that we’re testing for Whirlpool. We have to make sure that we have answers to the questions they have when that time comes. What I like so far is that the broiler does phenomenal and I love the cast iron grates. To me, cast iron cookware has a history of durability and longevity. With cast iron grates I feel the same connection with the cookware. It’s funny how much faster things heat up on the cooktop with gas versus a ceran top/coil top. The onions I was sauteeing released so much stuff in the air that Margaret’s eyes were stinging for awhile.

One thing I do miss from our old Kitchenaid range is the ‘easy convection converter.’  Say you wanted to bake something at 350, you’d input that temperature into the converter and the time and it’d adjust the heat to about 300 or 325 degrees. Very nice, but since I have experience using my own temperature range for convection cooking I feel confident in my abilities.

What else?  Oh yea, Margaret always wants to help, because she’s sweet like that (Plus I think it’s because it keeps her mittens off of her camera, addiction anyone?!?!?).  See below.

See what I mean?  Just kidding. I asked her to put the small gas line adapter thing into the range, but I put 2 layers of sealant tape on the thing and the range kept shedding it off. So I had to fix my mistake. That’s what that picture is. Luckily where Margaret came in handy was when we were getting the range into the kitchen. As ya’ll know, our kitchen is friggin’ huge, so we had plenty of space to maneuver the range into position. With me crawling from behind the range minutes later, we were ready to fire up the range…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………until I realized that it wasn’t level (CRAP!!!). Had to pull the damn thing out and throw some tile behind the range, because when a certain someone decided to tile the kitchen they ran out of backer board for the floor in that corner leaving a nice 1/4″ plus difference from being level. So, with all that done we got the range in place and then fired her up. Oh yea, I checked the lines for gas leakages. I had to throw the monkey grip to them to make sure they weren’t going to leak. It took a bit for the burners to set ablaze, but they did (per the instructions).

So overall the Gas-Similation and Electric Sex are tied for superiority of the kitchen, but E.S. (as we like to call her) has height in her favor. To finish off this post here are some more pictures. Check out the cool blue display from the range. NICE!!!!!!!!!!

I’m out!

As you can see I busted my arse today. Margaret wanted to help, but I shooed her back into the house so she could get to feeling better. It was hard making sure I checked in on her to take her medicine every hour. She did manage to take some pics though.

What happened was about 2 weeks ago we received an ungodly amount of rain. The kind of rain that makes perfect water puddles (ponds) to splash your friends and loved ones. Anyway, our basement had a very good leak coming from an old well housing. Luckily for us we have great neighbors near us. Their names are Dave and Jan. Dave is a contractor and he’s such a wealth of knowledge. Jan is like my dad in the way she supervises the work, but still doesn’t mind getting her hands dirty. Dave recommended that I lay plastic out in a tub type fashion, so when it rains the water will drain one way. It’s definitely not a permanent fix, but something that will get us through fall and spring. Next summer we’ll probably do things correctly. We are lucky though that our basement didn’t flood and just had a trickle of water coming in. You never know, we might have fixed the problem, but redundancy never hurt anyone. Has it? lol.

Well kids I’m out. I also need to apologize to Liz and Nikki, because we were supposed to go out to eat this evening to celebrate Nikki’s birthday and we had to cancel. With me in the yard and Margaret sick as a monkey’s uncle, there was no way we could do it and have it be enjoyable to all party’s. So we’re going to try tomorrow.

Later taters!!!

We ended up purchasing a Frigidaire dehumidifier that also has an air filter in it. It has some other functions, but I won’t bore ya’ll with specs. Overall it was a good $200 bucks spent. We’re thinking about plunking down another $200 bucks for another one, because the dehumidifier that came with the house is old (very old). The old dehumidifier isn’t energy star rated and whenever it turns on it dims all the lights in the house for a split second. That’s not a good thing to happen.

Well kids other than that, I’m out!

The New Fridge

Look how massive she is.

Before :  The kitchen cabinets over where the fridge should be are still there.

After : In order to make room for the new fridge we had to remove those cabinets.

we’ve removed the doors and the side.

and now Darryl has just removed the bottom piece of wood

and here is a photo of the sawzall (reciprocating saw ) that we purchased. Darryl’s friend Dave suggested that we purchase Makita brand. He said it was a little pricey, but out lasts most others.

We’ve been scrubbing the kitchen from head to toe for the past couple of days to get the funky smells out. It’s funny we went to an estate sale today and the basement in that house smelled just like ours (musty smelling). There’s got to be a way to get that smell out, but anyway I didn’t mean to digress. The kitchen has tile and the grout is black and it should be a shade of light brown. I put soft scrub on all the grout and let it sit for a few moments before Margaret and I started scrubbing like crazy. Some of the blackness came up along with some food. How gross is that? Margaret had a nice routine going on cleaning the top cabinets. First she would bleach the inside of a cabinet, then take a watered down paper towel to the cabinet, and finally wipe down the inside with an organic cleanser. She’s managed to get the litter box smell out of the cabinets (which is awesome!). We know that we’re not dirty people, but Lord have mercy. These cabinets were funk filled.

Oh yea, still without a fridge and range. We do have a crusty old Kenmore dishwasher from the 70′s though. It says on the appliance that it’s a “special edition.” Too bad that it’s not special enough to update itself. There’s all sorts of crusty old soap on the inside of the dishwasher. It’s so gross.

That’s all I got kids, I’m out.