Kitchen Renovations - Day 4

Day 4 dawned early (a la Bobo, who's now mostly over his cold and is the perkiest baby when he wakes up). Unfortunately, he is not happy with only me being up with him. He wants Daddy up too, and will pinch Daddy until Daddy responds, unless I can remember to scoop him up and remove him from the bed. Sprout does not understand that Daddy spends hours at night smoking cigarettes on the back porch while poring over plumbing and glazing books.

We decided today that we need to cut the Loraas bin loose, since we're paying per day on it. So, back to more wall gutting and window installation. The two windows together in the corner look fantastic. It's so bright and you can see so many trees (and the neighbour's camper...), that it's almost like being outside. Very cool.

My wall-gutting today revealed a set of four electrical wires that were snipped at the wall surface and mudded over. Am hoping they are not live wires. Am still breathing, and still have all my squirrel faculties.

Oh, wrong. Do not have all my squirrel faculties. Spent 3 hours in the morning spreading urethane on cabinet boxes. Wheeeeeee. Brain cells begone.

Sanding and spreading urethane very dull work, but I am oddly good at the dull and plodding sort of task. Jimbo has no patience for the tedious task, but somehow I gravitate towards those sorts of renovations. Perhaps because I can renovate and ruminate at the same time. Solving the problems of the world one cabinet wall at a time...

Found first renovating artifact today!! I love to find artifacts while renovating. So far in this house, we have found a toy gun, a 1938 Nazi penny under the baseboard in the add-on room (how did that get here?), funny papers from 1955 under the bathtub surround, an arrowhead in the garden (no longer in situ, I guess, but very finely crafted), 8 marbles in the front yard, and about 45 Canadian pennies. Today's artifact was a flathead screwdriver that was set down on a plank under the scary live/dead electrical wires, and then plastered over and left there. I would say it's been there since the 1950s.

We are doing a lot of renovations, and it's costly but we're having a really good time. The last time this house was overhauled so much was in the 50s. Unfortunately, the guy who did it that time made some very funny choices. For example, he moved the furnace duct from one corner of the kitchen to the other, and then stared at the old hole for a while: et voila!, let's turn it into a laundry chute. Hmm. A laundry chute in the kitchen, one foot off the floor. Very charming. I must say that I do like the guy though, because he left the 50s funny papers under the tub for me to find. A good choice if you're going to leave newspapers for posterity.

Tomorrow is bye-bye Loraas bin day, and clean the house day (am becoming paranoid that Sprout will suddenly become stupid from the ever-spreading lead paint dust). Oh yeah, and kill a few more brain cells in the garage day. Ole.

House was so filthy tonight that we had to pack up the old Sprout and haul him off to Saskatoon's finest Vietnamese restaurant, Saigon Rose. Mmm, rice noodles and charbroiled pork. The simple things in life. Rice. Meat. Lead-free dining.