Almost A Kitchen. Almost There

A Sink for My Birthday

"Either I will find a way, or I will make one." - Philip Sidney

My beautiful stainless steal farmhouse sink has a home now.

For my birthday, friends on vacation gave up their time to build me a kitchen and mount my sink. It's now ready for the plumber and the ridiculous faucet!

Imagine if you will the happiness and joy of cartwheels, confetti and a Phish-show worthy amount of balloons.

This is better.

Brad and Marc managed to divide and conquer a bit - with both working on readying their condo for incoming renters and then splitting up so Marc could work on my kitchen and Brad on theirs.

We had discussed the kitchen project many times over the past many months. Brad and his wife, Karen, and their kids, Faith and Dylan, had been over helping with several smaller projects during the holidays. Marc's wife Lynn so sweetly saved some magazines with great ideas in them  - that sadly I never remembered to get at New Years. I remember the drift wood table idea though and I'm working on it (drift wood photo to come).

My biggest contributions to this epic project were giving Marc a sounding board as he figured out how to create what I wanted and buying plywood - actually Dad bought the plywood for me for my birthday when we went to pick it up in his vehicle. Seriously, about all I can offer are pictures. On the second day, I went upstairs and put laundry away while Marc worked. He said figuring out how to build a structure to mount the sink was mentally taxing and the most difficult part of all of it.

I had the wood for the base of the counter tops - nice cedar that J picked out. He did get a template together that laid the foundation for the rest of the kitchen. And I have a nice miter saw that I actually own with my friend Guy. We each had smaller saws. I put them both on a local yard sale Web site and after selling them we bought a larger miter saw.

The plywood serves as the counter top now and will either stay as a base for permanent tops or become scrap wood. Linda at the local lumber yard came up with a brilliant idea for using the wood for counter tops when they aren't sealed and therefore aren't smooth and can't be cleaned: vinyl tablecloths! That'll work for now until I can decide what kind of wood I want or whether I want to go crazy and use concrete. Struggling with this decision - have to save money for it too.

Marc working out the details for the sink

Smoke-filled room after borrowed circular saw had blade in backward - Karl!

OMG it's a counter top!

Yes!

Yay!

First meal being cooked in the new kitchen - tomato and rice soup. Want the recipe? Just ask. 

Perfect spot for birthday flowers - thank you Brendan

A few days later I also completed that pocket door project I started a few weeks ago. After trying everything to get the stripped screws out and having others try, I gave up and bought the $22 tool kit the nice guy at Ace recommended. I did question him about why the more expensive one was better vs the Ace brand - 3 sizes vs 2.

 

Matchy

Matchy

Every day I am reminded of how blessed I am. I am thankful for friends and family and this beautiful place where I live. I'm sure I don't always show it but I feel it every single day.

It's in that everyday thankfulness, I realize how stupid I was to allow myself to be separated from friends - just by not hanging out with them as much - or in some cases at all - because J had a problem with them. He certainly wanted me to believe that just about every person I was acquainted with was not to be trusted. I know why now - they weren't to be trusted because he wanted me to not have any guidance or warnings - because he wanted to  be able to control me. Because when they came to me with what they saw him doing, I would doubt them, believe they just had it out for him for one reason or another.

As I look back, I still find it hard to believe I let myself be so controlled. I still am having some confidence and trust issues - hard to believe if you know me but it's true.

Getting there - little by little.

Debby reminded us at yoga last night: Give thanks for everyone that has been part of our life's journey. For all the lessons that we learned along the way, some easy, some hard, we are grateful. 

I'm grateful for the people in my life. I'm grateful for the experiences - good and bad because they make me who I am and who I will be.