Changes

I think we are both exceptionally pleased with the way the kitchen turned out. I mean, it’s not like we ripped out counters or redid the floors (the latter we don’t need to mess with, because the entire crib has hardwood, all of it in great shape), rather, we painted it a different color and replaced some light fixtures. On the day of the closing, the kitchen looked like this. You can not, however, see the big dumb lights, composed mainly of a centered cheap-ass saucer-like fixture surrounded by black track lighting.

We replaced the central light, about five months after Kerry bought this much-improved light source.

So, for a certain amount of time, it looked like this, with the new fixture in the middle and the existing rack lighting,

I tore that black shit down and was damn glad it came out clean. I wanted to preserve the slats on that ceiling, as it lends sort of a cottage-y feel to the room.

With removing the track lights, I was left with two small portals in the ceilings with boxes and wires, one at 8 o’clock and the other at 2 o’clock. We found some individual lights, small enough in size to work and throw some light. This job was pain in the ass. I bought from Home Depot some single track lighting plates, about the size of a single piece of bread, especially a small, thin one at the end, probably the last one, it was about that size. Those lights ended up working perfectly. The original lamp yielded only an amber light, so I got a halogen, plug-in job to go under the oven over-hang. The kitchen needed more light, but I wanted capitalize on the wires already sticking out from the ceiling. So, I installed two of these bad fuckers.

They took forever to put in, had to slice out portions of those slats, measure shit, cut the power, be patient, all of it shit I’m not good at. But it worked. Kerry helped and I believe that she is oftentimes the intangible that makes shit happen with efforts of this nature. During my week off, I painted the kitchen. It ended up looking like this

I think we spent more time prepping, taping and cleaning than we did painting, but we very much like the way it turned out. Here, look at it again fucker.

See? Burly/ugly track lights, white walls and black trim around the kitchen window. To, again, this

Yeah, I thought so. The dining room is next, as is some grass seed planting in the back yard, and some much-needed basement liquidating and organization. That’s going on through June to July1. After that, I’m chilling the fuck out for a month and focusing exclusively on watering the lawn, watching baseball and making out. Four weeks. Nothing but.

Speaking of before-and-after, this might be interesting to look at, or not. The day we closed on this house, I took this picture.

Snow-covered and bleak, we were still so very stoked to be in this house. And in the first eight or 13 weeks, we would wake up and remark to each other like we hit the fucking jackpot. “Do you BELIEVE this shit?” And here we are, the smallest house on the block. I shot this today to show a bit of contrast, but a huge ray of sunlight blasted down, creating an interesting blur.

What a difference a season makes.