And the work goes on...

I know that I have not written for a few days, but that is not because we have not been busy.  In fact, just the opposite is true.  Each day Rick works on the ceiling and the walls in the kitchen first thing in the morning.  The overhead work is very hard on him both because his shoulder has not been "right" since his surgery a couple of years ago, and because his heart does not seem to be pumping the blood up into his arms when he works overhead for very long.  He gets very tired and very winded quickly.

Relocation of an outlet: it looks easy, but it took both
time and planning to make it safe and legal.

Of course, that does not mean he will stop.  In the last two days, he also has been working to change the electricity around in the kitchen.  When we paid a fortune for the electricians to come in last year, they installed a refrigerator outlet from the garage into the end wall of the kitchen and an oven outlet next to the door where the refrigerator used to reside.  Both outlets, we have learned, were wrong.  The refrigerator outlet was too far to the left and would be located under one of my new kitchen cabinets-- not the most ideal place to plug in a 'fridge!  The oven outlet also was about two inches too far to the left, also placing it under one of the proposed new cabinets.  Rick has spent lots of time and muscle breaking through concrete walls and moving both outlets.  He also had to move an upper outlet because it, too, was too low.  Originally, that outlet was in the "eat-in" part of the old kitchen, so its height on the wall was not an issue.  However, since that area now will hold a bank of pots and pans drawers, the outlet had to be relocated.  The picture shows that it only needed to be changed a few inches, but that still was a tiresome task to be completed.

I am so glad that Rick knows how to do all of this.  I would have to hire an electrician to come in, and at this point, the budget will not support that kind of spending.  We still have to tackle the front wall of the kitchen.  We have brought the wire down into the room, but yet another outlet needs to be raised to right below the windows. That could lead to some interesting structural problems tomorrow.  I also would like a second outlet put in to be in the corner that has never held cabinets before.  This transformation will be very interesting, to say the least.

The soon to be blue kitchen.  To cover the green will
definitely take too coats of paint!

In order to see some completed results, Rick took the new paint and put it on a couple of the kitchen walls.  The picture shows the new blue ("Innocence") and the old green which we thought we would like but have decided against.  Obviously, we have a bit more to complete.

While he has been working in the kitchen, I have been trying to paint the totally unfinished (as in "never painted or varnished") bedroom closet doors.  The upper cabinet doors are in pretty rough shape, but for now they will suffice.  Perhaps in January we can get a bit more serious about changing them to something else.

Oh, I almost forgot to add pictures of the bedroom transformation.  I had mentioned earlier that we bought really fun, funky pineapple-topped furniture for the bedroom.  Although it is really cheap, I smile when I go into the room, and it does afford us more room and storage.  The old bedroom furniture is now in the guest bedroom.  We still are waiting for the new white 2" blinds for both the bedroom and the master bath.  That will help to totally change the look of the room.  Note the "before" and "after" pictures.

The "before" view with the old tables and dressers removed.

And "after" with the pineapple bedroom furniture. We
are waiting for a dark teal cushion yet for the bench and
new white blinds for the windows.

The dresser for the new bedroom, complete with pineapples
at the top of the mirror!

Each day we see new changes in Gladys, and they all are for the good.  We picked up some paint samples today for the house and new doors, but we have not found the right combination yet.  We liked one bright yellow for the house, but neighbors all voted for a more darker yellow hue.  The green we chose for the door is not going to work out, so we are back to square one on that decision.

We also looked at Best Buy for a new dishwasher and an over-the-oven microwave.  The microwaves all get terrible reviews, and Best Buy was outrageous on their prices.  We probably will get both appliances at a big-box store like Lowe's.   Did you get stock in Lowe's yet, like I told you to buy earlier?  You are missing humongous profits because what Rick and I have spent there this summer has certainly raised their stock value!