Clean the freezer day

Some of you know how when you're working 40 hours a week there are other things that don't get done, right? For the last year-ish while I've been working full time there are many, many things around my house that have not been getting accomplished. In the two and a half weeks since I've been home again, I've been a veritable whirlwind of activity.

Today, I cleaned out the freezer. Not the extra one in the garage, though that needs a good defrost and clean as well. I cleaned out the freezer in the kitchen. I've been waiting until it was almost empty to get a chance to clean it out. Today was the day! And it wasn't even on today's to-do list.

Also, this is how our kitchen looked before we moved in. I know you're jealous of that brown carpeting on the floor. And that really awesome wallpaper on that back wall.

The first thing I'll say is that sometimes, wallpaper can hide a multitude of sins. When we removed that wallpaper and painted that wall, it was no easy task.

And - look at what my fantastic husband, Jon, did while I was out of town in February. He refinished the floor in the kitchen! It is fantastic. It's amazing how much brighter the room is now that the floor is done. 

With such nice improvements and now a clean freezer you would think I would just love cooking in there, eh? Unfortunately, cooking is not one of my loves. Maybe I'll pretend it's crafting while I cook dinner tonight! 

Demolition

You want to know what's really awesome? Walking into the basement laundry room and NOT hearing water dripping from the bathroom upstairs.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

Why was water dripping you ask? Well, I'll tell you. See that lovely white caulk where there should be grout between the tiles in the photo below? That's where the grout had worn away over time and Jon used caulk to create a quick fix so water wouldn't drip into our basement any more. Because when the grout wears away? Then the water soaks into the wallboard behind the tiles and then drips into the basement once the wallboard is completely saturated. Cool, huh?

Yeah. Not really.

The next thing that happens when you have caulk in your shower where it's not supposed to be is that when you try to clean the walls in the shower, the caulk wants to remove itself from between the tiles. Very annoying. So again, slowly over time, the water began to drip into the basement. 

We decided we were done with water dripping into the basement.

Jon started this project on the evening of Christmas Day. I'm pretty sure he was hoping that he could finish the entire project before he went back to work just after New Year's Day.

Removing the tiles was the easy part and was very, very fun. Demolition is fun. You've all seen Extreme Makeover Home Edition, right? Of course ours was really nothing at all like that but still. It was fun to tear the tiles off of the wall.

Then we all took turns removing the wall board which had been behind the tiles. The good news was that this was a Sunday and our trash day is Monday. All of our first night's work was happily carted away by the garbage man the very next day! This made the mama of the house very happy.

And once the project began we decided we were going all the way and taking everything out. Above you have the entirely empty bathroom. It's kind of like that book, If you Give a Moose a Muffin. 

If you take out the shower and the tub, then you're gonna have to re-do the floor. And if you re-do the floor, you're gonna have to re-do the sink and the vanity. And when you try to remove the toilet, it's gonna break so you'll have to replace that, too. Yeah. It broke. 

So there you have it. Phase one. A totally clean slate to work with. You're going to have to come back tomorrow for the big finish!