Thursday, July 7, 2011

Devil's Kitchen

So, we thought we'd tear apart our kitchen and build a new one. My parents have new cabinets and said they'd kick their old ones down to us. We hated our old kitchen and decided to get a dumpster and kidnap someone to help us tear it all out!

Here is a panoramic shot of the kitchen with most everything ripped out. Where the light is was where a bathroom once was. It was one of those 3/4 units and it was just taking up space and it just ended up being a repository for things we couldn't find places for, which is usually a sign that you need to do some serious throwing of stuff away.

Say hello to my leetle friend!

Often in my house refurbishing projects I like to leave a message for future generations. Somewhere in the attic I have left cryptic messages about 2012. In our bedroom somewhere up in the attic I left some messages about a hidden treasure located somewhere on the premises. Here, I just want to save my own soul from being cursed by the next potential owners of this house that if perchance they thought our kitchen sucked and wanted to throw it into a dumpster, that should they discover the crude construction of some of it's walls that I personally would not be blamed for the foul order of things.

This is where old kitchen cabinets go.

This is where non-burnable kitchen refuse goes. This thing was filled to the hilt when it left our property.

Here is a panoramic shot of the kitchen in a much better state. We've built new walls, ran new electrical circuits and prepared the floor for finishing.

While the other house projects have grown and taken precedence, the other projects that I usually prefer to handle have been put on hold somewhat. Finishing the greenhouse most likely will not happen until mid-fall, when we hope to be able to get our cold weather crops in there along with some custom made cold frames.

On a whim I was tricked into starting to work on a new set of raised beds. I should have known that there was no way that we would have enough time to even think about a reasonable design, let alone actually doing the work of prepping and build the raised beds.

These new raised beds will be terraced and will contain bushes of some sort. We bought the bushes as well, but haven't been able to do anything with them. We'll probably just pot them for the season and replant them next year when we have time.

My hops is still going better then ever! We'll see if I have time this Fall to brew some yummy beer. :)

Various beans and peas and weeds.

Peppers and eggplants along the paths and beans on the right.

Mmm .. string beans ..


Pepper plant getting ready to go!

Currants! We have 4 currant bushes. Every year we are getting more and more currants. Eventually these guys get pretty big I am told, so that is what I am looking forward to.

Inside the greenhouse, we have two grapes vines that are kinda getting out of control. Next year or this fall we need to clip them back and maybe extend where they can grab onto. The grapes are numerous and are looking pretty good! I think next year I would like to try and put more grapes in right behind the dome.

It was the 4th of July and the kids wanted fireworks! And so did I. :)

Oh yeah - our kitty had kitties. We kinda let her have kitties as an educational thing for our kids. It was very educational in a veterinary medicine kind of way because our kids watched the entire process. My wife helped one of the kittens out by removing the sack that it was stuck in. Pretty real, gritty stuff!