Chamber of Chaos, Week One

I’ve dubbed our former and (soon to be again) kitchen the “Chamber of Chaos”. Want to see why? (Are you sitting down? It’s not pretty, I warn you…)

Looking east; stove wall

I guess it never looks good when you tear out cabinets and appliances and layers of flooring in a 40-year-old kitchen. At lunchtime on the first day, they had all the cabinets out. That’s when I took these three pictures of the demolition progress. By the end of the day, all the flooring was gone too. 

Looking southwest into the family room and hall

It’s all just subfloor now. And whew! It gets so dirty and dusty in here. I’m sure we’re tracking stuff all over the house, although we use special old shoes in this area and change to clean sandals or slippers when we move into other areas. 

Looking NW at dining room/family room corner

In the days following these pictures, all the new ceiling can lights and the new electrical panel were installed. The pendant light fixtures are among the last things to be hung once we near the end of the process. We also had the plumbing roughed in this week. Next week they will frame and drywall the ceiling where those recessed fluorescents were and patch all the other holes and gaps caused by running new electrical wires and plumbing… you know, making it all nice in prep for flooring and painting down the road. 

We’re managing just fine meal-wise. For dinner we’ve had barbecued chicken sandwiches, ham sandwiches, meatloaf with vegetables and rolls, and we went out once. Tonight we’re going out again with family, and it will be a nice change. But can I just say again, what a filthy mess!!

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I had finished my Rainbow Scrap Challenge blocks for Aqua July, but I realized that I’d never shown my Aqua/turquoise string blocks. So I do have something to share - 18 blocks that will finish at 6”. No plans yet for these string blocks. 

I also finished the binding on the Anne of Green Gables quilt this week. Let me show you the “glamour” shots - such as they are - of the finished quilt. I believe the finished measurements were 65x78”.  

The quilting, done on my Bernina 570QE (a domestic machine), was a series of loops and swirly hooks.

The story behind the quilt is in THIS blog post. 

The backing fabric was a lovely medium purple (I’m sure there’s a more precise name for it) floral. Plummy. Yeah, that sounds about right. 

The best part was giving it to my friend Ann on Tuesday after our Weight Watchers meeting. She loved it, and several of our friends gathered around and oooh’ed and aaah’ed. (Non-quilters are easily impressed, aren’t they?) hehehe. I got a couple great hugs out of it! 

The rest of my sewing week consisted of sewing letters on some identifying safety vests for my team of community landscape captains. Here is what *that* hot mess looks like.

There are twelve vests, each with the letters VSE. That stands for Vine Street East, the name of our condominium community. We felt it would be wise to have identifying garments of some kind as we go walking through front yards, which are common areas (not individual, private courtyards). 

Anyway, each black cotton letter was interfaced (stabilized) before sewing them on. I hope to get them done this weekend so that I can baste up some more quilts next week. 

I’ll leave you with a cute meme. I shared it a couple years ago, but I love it and always think of it when we have a miserably hot spell in the summer….

Have a lovely week, friends. 

Sewing for Sanity

Hey, isn’t one’s sanity a top “charity” goal we sewists have? It sure has been for me lately! 

This week I finished up my aqua and turquoise and teal color blocks for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge. Once all my primary blocks for the month are done, I turn my focus to working on coin columns and crumb blocks. I only needed four more aqua blocks to fill out the 11-block column of crumbs I’ll make into a column quilt at the end of the year. I also sewed strips and chunks together to make an approximately 4” wide column that will join the other colored columns later. Two separate column quilts. 

Not exactly exciting stuff, but they’ll be fun and colorful when they join their friends. 

My big accomplishment for the week was quilting the Anne of Green Gables quilt. Here are a couple sneak peeks. Obviously, it still needs binding. 

I’ll get it bound this weekend with that dark purple fabric in the outer border. And then hopefully Ruby and I can get some glamour shots of it before I gift it on Tuesday. I’ll show finished pictures next week.

But for this week, I have been working on HOA stuff way too much while simultaneously trying to get the kitchen packed up for Monday’s tear out / demolition. We’re also trying to pack a couple boxes of stuff we can use during the six weeks of no kitchen. The refrigerator will move to the living room and the pantry will remain untouched (except for painting when the time comes). We will keep our microwave, coffee pot and toaster and some paper plates and plastic utensils out and set up the table to function as a counter and dining space once the dust clears. The demo will include removing the carpet, so we’ll be living on just the subfloor until the new flooring is installed a couple weeks after that. 

Today I’m pre-cooking some pork loins and taco meat for quick meal prep that we’ll be able to do in the coming weeks. We’re going to try yo limit eating out to 2 nights per week, and we know just where the healthy and relatively affordable meals can be found. Once per week it will be fast food and once per week it will be a restaurant. Yes, there is healthy fast food - have you ever had Chick-Fil-A’s chicken wrap? Or Noodles & Company’s Chicken Caesar salad or … 

Are you ready for some scary photos? I haven’t shown these before. They are the “before” pictures of our kitchen and family room. They’re from when we first moved in 4 months ago, but much of the stuff was never unpacked. It looks just as horrible and forlorn today. But with the demolition and construction in the coming weeks, it’s going to look even worse before it gets better. But it will get better - I have to keep reminding myself. 

First of the BEFORE pictures. Everything from the beam back to the wall will be ripped out, except the windows, of course.  The cabinets were of excellent quality when they were installed in the 1980 (I almost typed “1890”) original build. But they’re very dated and very worn up close. Oh, and yes - we have a fourth matching chair for the dinette set - it was just in another room for some reason. The set opens up (with a leaf that rises up from beneath) and will be used as a table/counter during the construction process. Then the set will go to Cousin Kim. 

The picture below shows the odd configuration of the upper cabinets. I will NOT miss those! The new refrigerator will go there eventually. 

And these recessed fluorescent lights? Gone, baby, gone! This will be sheetrocked, painted and replaced with 6-7 can lights. The new cabinets will go all the way up to the ceiling with no dust-catching gaps.

The stove is fairly new and will be kept, but the hood fan will be replaced. 

The pic below is just another angle. But the peninsula will be ripped out and replaced with a large island that will jut out into the dining area. Oh, and that dishwasher is prehistoric and will be replaced by a stainless steel Bosch. 

The view below is looking from the kitchen out into the dining/family room area. That beige carpeting - again, original to the 1980 build - will be replaced with vinyl plank flooring that looks and feels like hardwood. It will extend throughout the kitchen and family room and down the L-shaped hallway. Cat owners (inevitable hairballs) will understand and appreciate that!

Last view: looking from inside the kitchen work area, out. That’s an old, unworking trash compactor in the kitchen peninsula. What a colossal waste of space! The upper cabinets there will be repurposed to the garage. That new area will see the “desk” area raised to counter height and flipped. We’ll have floating maple shelves on the wall to house my cookie jar and Pyrex collection. 

That potted poinsettia is now living out in the courtyard during the spring, summer and fall. It’s currently very lush and green. It will come back indoors as the fall weather cools. Here’s hoping the cats will leave it alone! 

I suffered my first-ever migraine this week, complete with aura, flashing lights, light sensitivity, yadda yadda. Thought I was dying of a brain tumor or something (haha) until the doctor’s diagnosis put all the puzzle pieces together. It seems to be mostly passed now, with just some residual eye twitching. Likely stress-induced. Stress? I can’t imagine what is causing that (she said sarcastically).  But life goes on….. 

Have a good week, my friends!

Linking to Rainbow Scrap Challenge.

Sewing Aqua and Friends

It’s hard to feel motivation to do much when you’re entering the second week of a 100-degree+ heat wave. Ask me how I know. I’ve felt like a slug. Yet I do manage to find time for HOA meetings indoors, (working outside for than 10 minutes at a time is nearly impossible), take naps, swim in the evenings, and do laundry in between naps. And I’ve been drinking lots of water and, if I’m being honest, new Diet Dr. Pepper with Coconut. Simple pleasures… 

But even though I’ve been Missing In Action from blogging for a couple of weeks, I have been sewing. What’s not to enjoy about sitting at my machine with a very green view out the window, the fan overhead whirring softly, good tunes playing in the background, and fun scraps lining up for their turn under the needle?! 

Here’s some proof that I’ve made progress with July’s Rainbow Scrap Color of the month, Aqua (and teal, and all the blue-greens):

Three Color Stix blocks:

One 16-patch star to finish at 12”:

And three Windmill blocks to finish at 8”:

And yes, I finally got my design wall up with the help of my friend Ruby. She also found a 100-yard roll of white flannel she had stored from her days as a home dec seamstress, and gifted it to me/us (our little sewing circle). 

It’s been so nice to have a design board again, even though space in the sewing room is at a premium. You may notice that there’s a quilt top lying on the table. 

The Anne of Green Gables top is ready to be basted, finally! That’s my primary job for today. Along with meeting another set of contractors to get a bid for resurfacing the irrigation ditch that runs through the condo property. Yeah, fun times…. But I digress. The Anne top measures 66x80”, and when finished will be a gift for my friend Ann. 

Since I’ve finally caught up on some serious sleeping, I may even have enough energy to cook something for dinner tonight! But if the energy is gone by supper time, there are always ingredients for sandwiches or salads.

And just to make this a more colorful post, here are some pictures of my little courtyard garden…

My echinacea (coneflower) is loving life. The rhubarb next to it, however, is being eaten alive. But the ground has been treated and the slugs and snails are history. But the plant will die back naturally in the heat anyway (for the season) and I will keep a closer eye on it next year. I’m finding that we’re having to deal with a lot more pests in this condo than in the old house - ants, snails, and wasps here at our place and other plant diseases in the trees and shrubs of the condo complex. And I’m learning a lot. 

I don’t think the petunias (clumps of green) are loving their too-shady spot, but everything else is happy enough. Begonias are real troopers for sun or shade. And the blackberry bush in the back corner - a cutting that I transplanted from the old house - is actually bearing fruit. Three whole berries so far, LOL, with three more on the way. But that’s OK. Our old bush started out that way, too. Next year it will grow and produce significantly more, and then by the third year, look out!!

The hydrangea is loving its life! The little plant in the white pot is a bell pepper plant. It seems to be doing well, too, although I don’t see any peppers yet. But there are buds. What is it waiting for??

And here’s Ringo the (cockatiel? Macau?) bird standing guard over the courtyard. My granddaughter Lauren and I painted it together years ago…

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Now, the rest of this post, which I’ll try to keep brief, is personal stuff that you can skip if you’re just here for the sewing. But I have to let some people (and my personal record) know what’s been going on. 

Bruce’s annual cat scan to check for cancer after his 2020 arm amputation came back in May showing an enlarged lymph node. This in itself doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but the doctor ordered a biopsy. The results said non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a very treatable cancer. Since the doctor herself is an oncology surgeon (who Bruce will continue to see annually), he was referred to an oncology specialist for the new cancer. He has had a series of three monthly blood tests (and treatment for slight anemia), and the specialist revised the diagnosis - CLL, or Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. It’s not the horrible acute leukemia, but a chronic type wherein the bone marrow is making cancerous white blood cells. It is verrrrry slow in progressing, thankfully, and some people have lived 30+ years with it. Since Bruce is 76 and relatively strong and healthy, and because CLL is relatively easy to control, this is likely something he can live out a normal life span with. But still. This is his third cancer. 

On a brighter note, as I may have mentioned before, we are in the process of making a VA (Veteran’s Administration) claim, and expect that due to his Agent Orange exposure in Viet Nam, he will be granted 100% disability. But that process will take months. 

The final news for this week is that our contractor let us know this week that it was time to make our lighting selections and the vent/fan selection for over the range. Wanna see the pendant lights? 

These will go over the kitchen island - not sure yet if we’ll need 2 or 3. But the MAIN news is that demolition begins a week from Monday, so I’ll be spending this week packing up the kitchen. Luckily, all the fancy dishes, rarely-used items and decorative items (cookie jars, Pyrex) were never unpacked from the move. So, I only have the basic pots, pans, dishes, glasses and silverware to do. And the pantry will stay the same, so that’s good. And I get to figure out meal prep with a refrigerator, microwave, toaster and barbecue only! I see a lot of dining out in our future for 4-6 weeks! Hey, in this heat, it sounds good to me!!

Linking up to Scrappy Saturday.