Day 5.086: Cold, party cloudy

Today was E5N1's 5th birthday party day. He celebrated at school (it being the nearest school day to his actual birthday on Sunday) and had his birthday party after school at lunchtime.

I took the day off to be there and to visit Exile #4's classroom to take some pictures for the yearbook.

The party was at the park because of the chaos at our house.  It was a little cold (very when the wind blew, only marginally when the sun came out), but the eight preschoolers and one school-age kid ran around and had a blast:

Presents were exchanged in full winter coats:

And Exile #2 had managed to make Cookie Monster cupcakes to go with the low-key monster theme.

He really didn't need any encouragement this year, but I imagine he's going to be very much in the birthday spirit for the next few days!

Day 5.085: Walls and a floor

After a late night of beavering away with tape and joint compound, I was back in the kitchen this morning to inspect my handiwork. 

The wall I destroyed and put back together:

and the general state of the place:

We're doing most of the work ourselves, but some things are better left to the professionals.  The wiring was the first thing and dealing with the large gaps in the flooring is another.

The flooring guy was in this afternoon and for the first stage of his activities, he turned this:

Into this:

And so, our kitchen is basically walls and a floor (now nearly complete) and a few wires and pipes hanging around.

Next week hopefully we'll be cluttering it up again!

Day 5.084: Rip it up and start again

I think we've reached the end of the destruction part of the kitchen project.  The electrical work is partially complete and there are no major holes in the wall, no wallpaper, no furniture.

So, to start the rebuilding project, the flooring guy is due to be here tomorrow.  We have to get the walls looking presentable, then it will be cabinet time!

Day 5.083: Drying out

We've had a couple of set-backs in the kitchen project today. Hopefully neither of them will cause any significant delays or problems. At least I believe all the water-damage issues are behind us.

No it's not the kitchen that's drying-out - it's our clothes - thanks to a much simpler (if not actually smaller) installation project that I completed recently:

Day 5.082: The wise man built his house out of rock

...the fool made his out of paper.

I have gradually become acquainted with the terminology of house construction and DIY in this country over the last few years. I know that walls are made out of wooden frames with sheets of paper-coated plaster attached to them. I also know that these sheets of plasterboard are known as drywall or sheetrock. For some time I've known that the process of installing these sheets involves something called taping. I even had a roll of the appropriate tape. Today, I got to use it.

We had decided to remove some of the drywall from the area where we had some water damage from the dishwasher. We needed to know if it had ever been wet drywall. Actually, punning aside, we needed to know if the insulation behind the drywall had got wet and potentially mouldy.

So yesterday, I cut a big hole in the wall:

And today, I filled most of it in again:

The final piece is waiting for the electrician to remove the dishwasher power cable tomorrow - so I don't have to install the final panel with an unnecessary hole in it.

So far, so good.