Kitchen Remodel: One Full Week

It has been a full week. Today is Sunday. Work began last Monday and continued through this afternoon.

Here's the colorful corner where the oven used to be, and will be again some day:

I love this photo compositionally. It shows where the stove hood will vent through the roof:

At this stage the small deck off the kitchen, soon to be enclosed, was a lawsuit waiting to happen. Good thing we hadn't planned a cocktail party for that evening:

Instead, Jer and I entertained ourselves by peeling paint, like sunburn:

One of our minor irritants over the years has been how easily the kitchen walls bruised. Obviously they weren't properly prepped before that bright yellow paint went on. We'll do it right this time.

Despite the amount of stuff the Rebuilding Center is taking off our hands, the dumpster was already full after a couple of days of work. I didn't see it go out, but I'll bet this tile, wherever it came from, must have added a special zing to the kitchen predating ours -- or maybe the one before that:

By Wednesday afternoon, when I last blogged, demo was complete and framing had begun. The impacted areas were almost down to studs, boards and subfloor. Speaking of which, late in the day, we -- by which I mean Steve and Les, the framer -- discovered another artifact of the earlier remodel, in which the kitchen was bumped out over a portion of the deck to create a dining nook: The old decking was still there. This caused some consternation, until we (same "we" as above) discovered that the underlying joists did, in fact, meet code. Whew; major win. The redwood stain is very similar to what Jerry and I chose for the backyard deck we put in.

Deck (left); former deck, a.k.a. dining nook subfloor (right):

Dining nook flooring, seen from below. It was disconcerting to stand in the yard and look up into the kitchen:

Thursday morning, I decided to git outta Dodge. Actually, this was a long-planned three-day excursion to Tacoma with my fiber arts pals. Our plan was to take in the APWQ show, as well as a couple of galleries and museums. We had a great time; I'm sure Gerrie and/or Terry will blog about it soon, if they haven't already.

The highlight of the trip, for me, was the Museum of Glass, especially the hot shop, where visitors can watch molten glass turned into vessels and other objects. I could have spent hours there. As it was, Jerry called in mid-performance; there was another design issue to resolve, this time involving the steps from the kitchen to the garage. I won't bore you with the details; not now, anyway. We worked it out.

By the time I got home last evening, the treacherous rail-less deck was gone. The space is now the southwest corner of our enlarged kitchen. If you look closely at the following pic, you can make out, just to the right of the big square window, the framing for the door that will lead to the new deck and the two corner windows above where the sink will go. All those dangly bits represent plumbing and electrical wiring, most of which will have to be relocated:

Here's what it looks like from the outside:

The other major change in my absence was that the pantry had been framed out to support the extended kitchen floor, eliminating the annoying step down to that area. Note the entombment of the old linoleum, which had lined the bottom of the pantry as well; we've left something for future remodelers to discover. To the left (below) is the base of the old pantry. To the right, the new framing. Beyond that, a sheer drop to the garage floor:

Going from living room to basement kitchen and back, last night and this morning, with occasional forays into the garage: not fun. But the inconvenience was short-lived. By this afternoon (yes, Sunday), the floor was level out through the pantry area:

And we had stairs again, of sorts:

The entire staircase to the basement will have to be rebuilt, and that's going to be a mess, since it'll impinge on our temporary setup downstairs. But that's a few days off. For now, it's navigable, though that first step is a doozy:

Kitchen Remodel: Daze 1 and 1.5

Living without a kitchen for several weeks will be challenging. But preparing for the experience has been friggin' exhausting. Let's hear it for ripe tomatoes.

After clearing out and storing all our non-essential paraphernalia -- why do we own so much stuff? -- I turned my awesome organizational skills toward setting up the field kitchen downstairs. The main expanse is normally my studio work table. Before I retired, it functioned as my office desk, easily accomodating a computer, printer, and flatbed scanner, with plenty of room left over. Now the microwave, toaster and toaster oven are at one end, the cutting board and general prep area at the other. Desk, you have served us well.

Elsewhere in the finished basement, we set up a breakfast cart, bar, and -- in a corner that's always been underutilized -- a gracious dining room:

Upstairs, in our so-called dressing room -- which doubles as a cat-art gallery and triples as my yoga space -- we established the animal feeding and treat station. Their accustomed bowls are arrayed around the perimeter of the room. In the morning the cats come in and stretch with me.

The official start of the job was marked by the arrival, mid-yesterday, of the dumpster and porta-potty:

Steve spent several hours digging through heavy clay to prepare the foundation for the new deck supports. China Rose conducted the pre-inspection:

I'm hoping my Marathon conifer, which is now over six feet tall, survives the framing and other outside work. Perhaps my festive pink ribbon will protect it:

As soon as Steve's truck pulled into the driveway this morning, Jerry and I began unloading the refrigerator. Steve and a helper then carried it to the garage, where it'll live for the duration. (That's the dishwasher, which we'll reinstall, behind it in the photo). I carted essential foodstuffs -- I love that word -- to the smaller fridge that lives downstairs, conveniently adjacent to our temporary kitchen, and shlepped items we probably won't be using for a while -- pancake syrup, whole wheat flour, exotic seeds and grains -- to the one in the garage. This sort of logistical triage is every bit as tiring as the multiple trips up and down stairs.

So much for prep; on to the remodel itself. How's that going? Well before noon, the old cabinets and some other fixtures were in the garage, awaiting pickup by the Rebuilding Center.

I forgot to post a "before" picture earlier of the beam that runs east-west through the kitchen, a remnant of an earlier remodel. The original owners of our house sacrificed a portion of their kitchen deck -- sort of similar to what we're doing -- and bumped out to create a dining area. The beam will go, and the ceiling will be raised to match the height of the rest of the room. This alteration, which we wouldn't have imagined was possible -- and thanks to Jack Barnes, our architect, for pointing out the potential -- is going to make a huge difference.

Note the darker yellow paint splotches on the wall. It would never have occured to me to paint the kitchen yellow -- I'm a blue-green person and still somewhat averse to red and orange in my personal environment -- but the people we bought the house from thought differently. Combined with the bright green floor, it made me smile every time I walked into the room, especially during our grim, gray winters. So we're sticking with yellow walls, though a darker shade to harmonize better with the new floor, cabinet and countertop colors.

Jer and I snuck into the construction zone while the guys were on lunch break. We're already down to the walls. The first photo was the stove area, the second one the sink. Amazing.

Here We Go Again

We're all getting over Rachel's death, including Max and Shelly, who've resumed laying on a regular basis. I've started letting them free-range in the back yard, under close supervision. Amazingly, both cats and dog are supremely nonchalant in the presence of the uncaged hens. Maybe they're just biding their time, though I doubt it; Stella Luna seems a little cowed, if anything, and I've seen Shelly deliver a sharp, admonitory peck 'longside Sophie's head when the pup seemed way too interested in sniffing chicken butt.

We'll probably add to the flock at some point, but right now, we're preoccupied with our impending kitchen remodel. This will be a big one. We've done several other home improvement projects since moving here six years ago, and in Berkeley we added an entire storey to our house. But this is the first time our kitchen will be totally offline for several weeks.

The plan is to expand to the southwest, sacrificing the existing small deck off the kitchen, and building a replacement just to the east, under the big square south-facing window. In this view from the back yard, the deck is to the left, in shadow:

The sink will move to that southwest corner. New cabinets, quartz countertop and Marmoleum (tm) flooring. New fridge, too, though we're keeping most of the other appliances. They're not that old, they work well, and why add to the landfill?

We're also planning to eliminate the step down to the existing pantry at the top of the basement stairs, and to expand that area slightly, taking over part of the garage. This will involve rebuilding the stairs, but we think it'll be worth the additional expense and inconvenience. The photos show the current pantry (note the lovely grain on that plywood door) and the area of the garage that will be affected:

A couple of major design considerations have been the bulky old Hoosier cabinet -- our baking center, which I love -- and the hanging pot rack, which can't go just anywhere. We think we've found good solutions for both. (The painting in the pic below is a recent birthday gift; it's by a New Mexico artist and friend named Mary Carter.)

Our prep got underway a couple of weeks ago and has focused on two main fronts: Clearing stuff out of the impact zones -- the south end of the garage, the cabinets under the stairs, and of course the kitchen itself -- and setting up a field kitchen in the basement, using Jerry's workbench, my big studio desk, and a six-foot folding table in the guest room, for cookware, appliances, and foodstuffs, respectively.

We already have a small refrigerator downstairs, and the main one will move to the garage for the duration, to be replaced toward the end of the project. This morning we moved four large containers of tomato plants from the driveway, on which contractor trucks will have dibs, to the walkway. This is looking to be a not-bad year for tomatoes, but that's another blog post...

At this point the space is pretty well stripped:

Kitchenware is piled in and on every available out-of-the-way nook and surface, especially in the guest room. Sorry, Casa Jereva is undergoing renovation and is not accepting bookings til October:

We're down to the very basics -- food and utensils for breakfast, lunch, and a couple more catchall dinners upstairs, plus Jerry's margarita makings and my coffee setup.

The project begins Monday morning with some outside concrete work; the kitchen itself won't be breached until Tuesday. But by then we'll be cleared out and ready to roll, logistically if not emotionally.

Speaking of which, we haven't yet told the cats. But their environment has been shifting slowly, day by day, so they surely know something's up. Here are a few more pix from shortly before their lives were thrown into chaos:

Sad times in Chickenland

Rachel died a week ago this morning.

I'd taken her in for a second cortisone shot, hoping for a miracle cure like the first time. It made no difference. She got weaker and weaker and finally stopped eating and drinking. I had a long conversation with the vet last Tuesday evening, having already made an appointment to bring her for an evaluation on Thursday. But she declined sharply after that, only changing position a couple of times during the day, and falling on her side when she tried to walk.

When I opened the run a little after 8 Thursday morning, she was still breathing, but that was about it. When I went back to fetch her around 9:30 for the trip to the vet, she was stiff, though with terminal paralysis or rigor mortis I couldn't quite tell; I thought maybe I heard a heartbeat. We took her in anyway, and one of the techs confirmed death. As I'd anticipated from our earlier conversations, the vet wanted to do a necropsy to see if it was Marek's disease (which is so common that chicks are routinely vaccinated against it at 1 day of age) or something more exotic. I wanted to know, too.

The doc called back a couple of days later and left a detailed report on my voicemail. Not Marek's, which I guess is the good news. The cause of her presenting symptoms? Inconclusive. We're left with the original diagnosis of some neurological weirdness; maybe she'd had a stroke at some point. But the immediate cause of death was a massive fungal (aspergillus) infection of the right lung, possibly caused by aspirating food. I'm struggling with the realization that my tube-feeding back in May, when her neck was so terribly contorted that she couldn't eat on her own, might have killed her.

Rachel and her flockmates were tightly bonded. The other two, usually reliable layers, slowed way down during Rachel's final illness. They haven't laid an egg since she's been gone. Now, of course, I'm worried about them. They look fine, and I'm hoping they're just sitting shiva, in their poultryesque fashion, for Ray.

This is not what I signed up for when I got chickens. I didn't want to start with baby chicks because of the mortality factor; at 64 I have enough of that to deal with in my human life. I tried so hard to keep my hens safe and happy without being overly obsessive. But right now I feel like I'm living out some kind of Chickenland worst-case scenario. Of course I'm thinking about adding to the flock, but not til I find out what's going on with Max and Shelly. Would new playmates cheer them up, or stress them out further?

Two and a Half Hens

It's been a roller-coaster ride in Chickenland.

One afternoon at the end of April, Rachel suddenly starting limping. She walked with her left leg held straight out, like a marching soldier. I assumed she'd injured herself and watched her for a couple of weeks, hoping it would improve on its own. Finally I took her to the chicken vet, who prescribed a course of Celebrex. No change.

At that point almost a month had passed. Just before Memorial Day weekend, Rachel got dramatically worse. Her neck contracted to the point where she couldn't eat or drink on her own. Her entire body skewed to one side. Off-balance, she could barely walk. I called the vet and got the first available appointment, on Monday. They'd be open despite the holiday. That evening I found Ray at the bottom of the henhouse ladder, on her side. My heart sank. She couldn't navigate the steps. I lifted her up, carried her down the next morning, and, for three days, syringed as much water and liquid nourishment down her throat as I could. Pilling a chicken, hydrating a chicken: two new skills to add to my resume.

Memorial Day morning I took her to the vet. Rachel was in terrible shape. In the exam room she could hardly stand upright. The doc didn't hold out much hope. She told me that it was probably something neurological, and that chickens -- along with migratory waterfowl, interestingly enough -- have really weird nervous systems. Psittacines (the parrot family) are normal by comparison. All she had to offer was a cortisone shot. We took it. Rather, Rachel took it -- right in the white meat, my sick mind pointed out.

24 hours later, she was walking again. Her neck unkinked. The limp diminished and eventually disappeared. She ate, enthusiastically. The vet had cautioned me that cortisone was a temporary fix at best; its effect might last a week. That was a little over a month ago. I started thinking of Ray as our special needs chicken. Sad, because she had been my most adventurous, inquisitive girl. But still, she was an active part of our flock of three despite her diminished capabilities. The video shows her, the dark brown bird, going at the greens with gusto, and even getting in an alpha-girl peck on Max.

A few days ago I noticed that Rachel's left wing was drooping, to the point where the long flight feathers dragged between her legs, sometimes getting in the way when she walked. This morning, she wasn't pacing the coop floor with Maxine and Shelly, waiting to be let out into the run. She was still in the nest box, but scrambled out when I arrived and stood hesitantly in the doorway, measuring the distance to the ground. I lifted her down and saw that her left eye was closed. Not blinking, but shut tight. Another sign of neurological damage, I'm guessing. So now I have a one-eyed chicken. What will happen next?

To those of you with human children, I apologize: But this weighs on me as I imagine your kids' illnesses and hardships weigh on you. In the days immediately after her injury, Rachel laid the two eggs she already had in the chute; there've been no more since then. But eggs are not the issue. I've taken responsibility for these animals. I can't regard them as livestock, the way a farmer would. Once I named them, they entered the realm of pets.

Look What the Cat Dragged in, Phase III

Several years ago I documented our cat Stella Luna’s odd obsession with bringing wads of dried grass into the house and depositing them in various locations. Later, her interest morphed into transferring gloves, hats and socks we kept in a basket by the door to other parts of the house.

In the last few years, she’s pretty much limited her artistic efforts to a carefully placed toy mouse or catnip pillow, announcing each installation with a forceful yowl. This activity invariably takes place shortly after her staff has gone to bed for the night. We drift off to sleep mildly curious to see what awaits us in the morning.

As she did earlier in her artistic career, Stella’s now exploring another new medium. She’s been working with fabric lately, using scraps and strips from my work table to articulate her own creative vision. Frankly I don’t think it’s as strong as her earlier work, but at least somebody in this family is putting in studio time.

Bag Lady

Ages ago, when she heard I’d gotten into quilting, a friend in DC sent me a couple of dozen Marimekko fabric samples. They’ve been maturing in my stash until two or three months ago when I decided to make little purses from them. Most of the swatches measure about 8 x 9 inches which, trimmed and sewn, is just the right size for a bag to hold the walkabout essentials: cell phone, reading glasses, house key, kleenex and, for dog owners, a plastic bag or two. I have tons of commercial printed fabric for lining, and a vast collection of ribbons for shoulder straps, plus my grandmother’s button tin and random embellishments I’ve accumulated over the years. It’s time to use some of this stuff up!

Since the Marimekko samples are one of a kind, the front and back of each purse is different, which I guess makes them reversible. It’s fun playing mix-and-match, pulling out yardage I’d once considered star-quality quilting material to use as lining, inventing loops and closures, maybe adding a flap or pocket when I find a scrap that works.

I’m quilting each bag, just a bit, with perle cotton, to keep the layers together. Some of the samples included tiny patches showing additional colorways; I’ve left those on. The overall effect is funky, but functional (hey, there’s a marketing slogan). Each purse is slightly better constructed than the last, and takes less time to put together, since I’ve figured out the basics. The first one (below), which doesn’t have batting, I’m calling “summer-weight.” The others are all padded.

This one (below) is lined and trimmed with a plaid cotton that used to be one of my favorite skirts. I still like the muted purples, browns and grays. The closure incorporates the buttonholes from the original waistband. I love this kind of recycling.

I feel like I could crank these out indefinitely while half-watching TV or listening to podcasts, but I’ll probably stop once I’ve exhausted the Marimekko stash and move on to something equally exciting in another realm. The downstairs sofa is calling out for pillows.