House Renovation Update

A lot has happened since my last update as far as our house renovation. All of our bathroom remodel related items have been ordered and we are waiting upon their arrival before stating that portion of the project.
Our kitchen cabinets, which were made in Ohio, arrived yesterday and today our contractor that is handling our entire kitchen remodel came by to check each and every item to make sure that everything arrived and that nothing was broken during the shipping process. As it turned out everything came in fine.
Our contractor is one of the best in the area and he is always booked up weeks in advance. We are not scheduled to start our kitchen remodel until somewhere around the 3rd week in September. The contractor asked me when I was planning on having the hardwood floors put in. I told him that it would not be until after the bathrooms and the kitchen are done. He told me that it would be best if I got all of the carpet out of the kitchen, which would make for a cleaner and better install of all of the cabinets. So with that being said I have another project that I need to do.
I started pulling up the carpet today, only to find old dirty and loose vinyl flooring underneath. The vinyl flooring is glue in some areas and not in others. If it were firmly glued everywhere than I would just leave it in and have a flooring put on top of it. Unfortunately that was not to be the case. So today I spent quite a bit of time removing a large section of the carpeting in the kitchen, pulling the carpet padding out, removing the tacking strips and then started to pulled off the vinyl flooring. The vinyl flooring is what takes the most time because I am trying to get as much of the paper backing off the floor in the areas where they actually glue the vinyl down.
Not only is there vinyl flooring in the kitchen but it also extends into the dining area. So I will need to prep the dining area after I get done with the kitchen. It could take me 3-4 days to get it all done, if not longer.
I will need to fit in some other projects when taking breaks from the carpet and flooring issues.
The next big project will be occurring on the 15th of this month and that will be getting an entire house full of new windows put in and we have a lot of them. That job will take the window crew a majority of the day. A few days ago we ordered our new blinds for all of the windows downstairs. We decided that since most of our living will be downstairs, rather than upstairs like it is now and has been during the entire time we have lived in this house, that we would make due with the window coverings that we have upstairs and not replace them.
So after the windows go in we will have a little lull in the action before the big projects start.
Here are a few photos of the cabinets...most still in their boxes for protection and also some photos of my ongoing job of removing carpet, carpet pad, tacking strips and the vinyl flooring in the kitchen and then in the dining room.

One thing I forgot to mention...all of our new lighting fixtures for the kitchen, dining room, "formal" dining room and the entrance/foyer area have been ordered and received.

Cabinets in our front room

This is our new pantry slide in. The top portion has a shelf dividing the space into 2 levels and the bottom has several sliding shelves that you can pull out for easier access for items that are in the back 

More cabinets in what will be our Master Bedroom

And here is my nightmare. Ugly and filthy carpet, padding and tacking strips are up next is the vinyl flooring

The start of a new pile...this one being trash

Sweet Pepper Mania

My sweet pepper plants are growing really big and well. This years pepper plants are the healthiest I have ever had. I grew them from seeds. The plants that I grew by seeds are at least twice as big as the plants that I bought from a well known seed company. I will continue to buy my seeds from the company but my days of buying their actual plants are over with.

 I dug up some potatoes the day before yesterday and Veronica cooked some of them up last night

Just a few of the many sweet peppers that I have got this season. I must have 15 vacuumed bags of pickled sweet peppers in the freezer already and I have just started to harvest them. I will be giving a lot of sweet peppers away this season.

This is the start of the 4th jar of peppers that I am pickling. I warm the liquid up and pour it over the peppers and seal the top down well. I usually leave them out on the counter for 3 days or so and then put the jar in the fridge for several more days. When I pull the jar out I drain the liquid and wipe off the excess liquid and then vacuum bag and seal before putting them into the freezer. They will last all Winter in well into next Spring by doing it this way.  Our food saver vacuum machine works great.

 Here are the plants on our back deck

The Beat Goes On And On And On

The last several days have been hectic to say the least. Been busy with the arrival of all new appliances and tearing our old carpet and really old vinyl flooring, which was under the carpet. Plus there was another unwanted surprise thrown in for good measure.

Veronica and I got all new major appliances during Home Depot's 4th of July Sale that lasted until July 11th. Due to our hectic schedule we ended up not being able to make our purchases until the evening of the 10th. We ended up getting some really good deals and saved some money.

We got a Samsung 5 burner stove

A huge Samsung French door fridge with a huge freezer down below. This thing is massive and has some really cool (no pun intended) features

A special compartment for meats and cheeses

A big freezer section with a top sliding tray

We also got ourselves a Maytag front loading washer/dryer. So many buttons...so little time. It will take me a year to figure out how to use it properly. I did a load of wash yesterday. I pressed some buttons and hoped for the best. I have no idea what i did but it worked...clean clothes and everything still works. 

The old stuff was put in the garage awaiting pickup to be re-used

Put the other Samsung in the garage next to the old but still working well fridge

Below is the new laundry sink and cabinet that will be installed after the flooring gets put in. 

 A pile of goodies for the soon to be new master bathroom

I spent this morning pulling up all of the old carpet and tacking strips from the master bedroom

Much to my surprise....there was more tile under the carpet. Before I found this section we were only planning on removing a small 2' x 2' section of tile, replacing it with hardwood flooring. Looks like the price of tile removal just went up. The tile color won't go with the colors we have chose in general.  

Took the carpet out of the half bathroom that is in the foyer, only to find vinyl flooring. Luckily the hardwood flooring can go on top of the vinyl flooring without any issues

Same thing in the laundry room...carpet over vinyl 

Once again...carpet removed from upstairs bathroom. Under the carpet was vinyl flooring. I made the mistake of taking off the old vinyl flooring. It came up but left quite a bit of the paper backing still glued onto the wood floor. It took me all day to scrape and finally sand the glued paper off of the wood floor. Sanded it down flat enough where the the new flooring will lay down nice and flat on it without any high spots. The photo below is how I learned my lesson and left the vinyl flooring intact in the other locations.  

I think this photo says a lot...the old and the new. Pile of old carpet, pile of old carpet pad in the plastic bags, pile of old carpet tacking strips in the box and new stove waiting to be installed after the kitchen makeover.

I found out today that it might not be until 3rd week in September that our bathrooms will get started. Our kitchen remodel is supposed to start sometime around then too so we will have to do one right after the other. Everything is being pushed back further for the start dates. I won't let 2 remodels going at one time. And I won't be letting any carpet or flooring be done until after the bathrooms and kitchen are completed. And of course there is the painting of the entire inside of the house including the ceilings. Oh...I almost forgot the window blinds and such. All new lighting will be put in along with new fire detectors.

We have such a long ways to go on this journey and I am totally exhausted just thinking about it.

Feels like nap time to me.