Lights!

I've talked before about going with the flow.

When your electrician shows up and tells you you don't have all the parts that are supposed to be in the box, you make some adjustments. 

Voila! The intended kitchen pendant is our new foyer light fixture, complete with Edison bulb! 

What do y'all think? See anything else interesting?

Our kitchen: version 3.81

There are plenty of tasks and projects around Isthmus House that are fun and make a big change. Others are not quite as entertaining but allow for a big change.

For me, one of those things was moving the kitchen gas line.

#TBT (That’s Throwback Thursday for those, like me, that need to Google such things), the range was against the foyer to kitchen door, preventing easy movement from the front of the house to the back.

It wasn't pretty (but, then, neither was the kitchen in general) and had to change a few months back. When we opened up the foyer door, the range moved into the corner next to our new, giant fridge.

The huge fridge blocked a good angle into the kitchen from the dining room, was too deep for the range to slide back against the wall and made it so space was tight trying to squish the range in next to the gas line.

That little jut out made a nice little space for trashcans...

Even though it was workable it certainly wasn't desirable and so the gas line had to move.

This is something you should not do yourself. On the off chance you don’t already know this: natural gas can be quite dangerous because it’s extremely flammable. Call your plumber.

First was turning off the gas. This part is rather important if you don't want to accidentally blow your house up which may be slightly inflammatory and exaggerated but certainly possible.

We didn't have a shut off for the gas here - we turned it off outside!

 Next was drilling a hole in my beautiful floors for the new gas line. I realize it had to happen but I'm rather sensitive to floor damage.

It's a small hole and it's covered by the new range too!

 Being an older home with lots of crossing lines, pipes and ducting, they also had a lot of fun cutting the old line and feeding a new one in:

Not the prettiest thing, but we got the new line placed in record time before the new range got delivered.

What do you think of our latest kitchen version? 

Demo day! An excerpt

As many of you already know, when we first moved into the House on the Isthmus, I lived on the enclosed front porch. Yes, it was a little cramped but not unworkable by any means.

Upon my parents' first trip to visit, however, we'd just found mold in the shower from the Saga of the Wood-Paneled shower and Isthmus House was becoming single-family a little ahead of schedule which meant I was moving upstairs. 

Funny story, though, my box spring couldn't make the trip. While my queen-sized memory foam mattress folds, my box spring did not and, no matter how much anyone pushed, was not coming up those stairs. Fortunately, my Uncle Paul saved the day and sent a folding box spring that could go right up the stairs. At the time, I didn't even know they made those!

When we first moved in, it just looked like your average bad paneling

Fast forward a little more than a year and subtract a little paneling and it's demo time at Isthmus House! 

Here's what we were dealing with when we started "demo"

The Roommates and I pulled down the entire hot mess that was the top of our stairwell to expose the vaulted ceiling. 

Getting started was as easy as pie - if pie were a hammer

I pulled almost all of the drywall down in hopes that an aforementioned box spring would finally make it up the stairs for one of the bedrooms and was sorely disappointed when we ran straight into the beams that had been added to hold up said "ceiling."

A short visit from the Sawzall later and one Roommate that wanted to blow off a little steam and we were in business. The box spring went straight up the stairs.

Lath, plaster and some electrical

So, now we have one more box spring upstairs where it belongs, but this all begs the question: what to do about this new, pretty picture?

Guess you'll just have to stay tuned to find out! Happy almost Friday!