Why Yes, That Is An Ant

Recall my massacre with Raid a couple of days ago?

Well, the termite guy came today and told us we DO NOT have termites!

They were just flying ants.

I didn't know ants could fly.

Roaches, yes.

Ants?

Ugh. Just another bug that could potentially fly at me and attack.

Great.

Prepping For Demo

We had to do some preparation before we could start swinging hammers at things. 

First, we removed the appliances with the help of our friend Paco. We have a gas stove so we shut off the gas line at the back of the stove which was as easy as a quarter turn of a handle. Then we just disconnected the gas flexible gas line to the stove and wheeled it out to the garage. 

The refrigerator was supposed to be easy. Just unplug it, turn off the valve underneath the sink to disconnect the water line to the fridge for the ice maker, and roll it into the dining room to plug it back in. 

Jon turned the valve underneath the sink (that little clear football looking thing below)....righty tighty lefty loosey.

Disconnected the small copper water line from the back of the fridge.

And water rushed out and wouldn't stop! 

I'm in the back yard and Jon runs out past me like the roadrunner screaming "The water's not off!" trying to look for the shut off valve for the main water line to the house. 

I grab the closest thing I see, our 15 gallon crawfish boil pot, and run inside. By then Paco has already filled up a plastic bucket of water. He tells me Jon tried to turn the valve underneath the sink even more but the water was still coming out. I switch him out with the crawfish pot and he joins Jon in looking around outside the house for the main water shut off. 

I'm screaming at them that the crawfish pot is almost full. I go grab our igloo and switch to that. 

 

So after we fill up a plastic bucket, a crawfish pot, and part of an igloo, the water finally stops. I breathe a sigh of relief and ask where the main water line shut off was? 

Paco: I just turned the valve underneath the sink about five more times.

Jon: What the heck. I turned that thing about 15 times the first time.  

Lessons learned...

1. Righty tighty means turn it to the right a billion times.
2. Know where the main water shut off is ahead of time (just in case) so you're not running around outside of the house like a mad man. I'm sure the neighbors were staring and just shaking their heads.

Moving on after that mini fiasco.

We removed all the quarter round toe kicks going clockwise around the kitchen and numbered them to remember where they went. We plan on painting them white and re-using them.

 

 

Then we laid down builder's paper with painters tape and placed hardboard down to protect our hardwood floors during the renovation. 

 

 

We bought one roll of builder's paper and 5 sheets of 4' x 8' hardboard from Home Depot.  

Last but not least, we turned off the electricity and checked the outlets to ensure they weren't still hot. 

Safety first!

What is that...an ant?

Don't get me wrong. I love our house but can we catch a freakin break please!

I saw these tiny tiny little ants crawling up and down in a nice single file line on the exterior of our patio door. I went ape-sh*t on them with Raid. I sprayed the entire exterior of the door from the ground up because I wasn't sure where they were coming from or where they were going to. I also sprayed in a little gouge in the wood on the door because I saw some coming in and out of there. They died instantly. I hate bugs.

Jon saw my massacre when he came home yesterday but he discovered something else. A bunch of big ants were dead too. I was confused because all I saw and killed were small tiny ants. The big ones must have been in the little hole during my reign of terror.

He picked up one of the big ones and that sucker had wings!

Dang it. I was fooled. They are not ants.

They are termites. Ugh.

Calling termite guy to come out asap.

If things keep going at this rate who knows when our kitchen will be done.

I'll stop my whining now.

Kitchen update to come. I promise.

Thanks For The Shower YMCA

This has nothing to do with our kitchen renovation but I promise I'll catch yall up on the kitchen this weekend. We've made lots of progress and we might just meet our end of August deadline. Crap. I'm sure I just jinxed us by saying it (tying it?) out loud.

Anyway, for now I just wanted to share one of the many joys of owning an old home. Something is always going wrong at the most inopportune moments. 

The hubs went out of town on Wednesday last week for work for a couple of days. The day he leaves I discover water shooting up out of the grass in our backyard from a broken water pipe to our washer (which is in our garage). 

Awesome. Gotta love the 1950's standards for a completely exposed water pipe.

I turned off the main water line so we wouldn't have a flood in our backyard. Jon was coming home Friday evening so I figured I could hold out with no water until then. I don't like having service guys come by if I'm home by myself. Really the only thing that concerned me was taking a shower. Then I realized I could just shower and get ready for work at the YMCA after my work out in the mornings. A shower is really good motivation to get out of bed and get to the gym.

Thursday I wake up early, get to the gym, work out, shower there, and leave for work. Worked out perfectly.

Friday I wake up late. No time to work out but I really need a shower. I go to the YMCA (in my work out clothes so I at least look the part) and go straight to the locker room to shower. I walk out all clean and dressed for work about 40 minutes later. As I walk out I glance at the front desk to see if anyone noticed I just walked in there to shower. No one sees me. I'm in the clear! *whew*

Jon and my brother fixed the water pipe and we turned our water back on on Friday evening.

In case you're wondering, you can get two good flushes out of a toilet (number 1 only, no number 2) after the water is turned off.  Use them wisely.

Sometimes ya just gotta do what ya gotta do.

Meet R2-D2

Say hello to our shop vac affectionately called R2-D2. Yes, we name our things. Makes us feel more connected to them.....Hans, Lulu, Helga, Landon, Stewie.....all inanimate objects. We're weird like that but let me tell you, this little guy is amazing.

We picked him up at Home Depot the day before we started our demo. Jon did the research and found this one. Now I'm usually one to wait out for a sale which we tried. We were hoping it would go on sale during Memorial Day weekend or at least there would be some sort of discount on home improvement stuff for the holiday but sadly no. So we bought this baby at full price. It hurt me just a little but we desperately needed it to start knocking things out. You can check out more about R2-D2 here.

Our top 10 reasons why R2-D2 is awesome (drum roll please)

10. He's so lightweight that I can pick him up with one hand

9.   He rolls smoothly around with ease on his little feet (wheels)

8.   He has a long extension cord to get around the total chaos everywhere

7.   He has a utility nozzle, a car nozzle, and a wet nozzle 

6.   He has 2 extension wands which makes a bigger difference than you'd think

5.   He can hold a lot of stuff in his little body

4.   He sucks up everything (nails, wood chips, sheet rock bits, dust, insulation, bugs, small children, you name it)

3.  His suction is so powerful that he can pick up stuff within an inch or two of where you aim the nozzle

2.  He can suck up wet and dry stuff

1.  He can give you about a 2 inch hickey, if that's what you're into. Don't worry, I won't tell.   

       

Poser

Me to Jon: I'm going to take lots of photos while we do all this stuff so I can post it on the blog so don't mind me.

I started snapping away at the start of our demo and I got this.

His model pose (pursed lips and cheeks sucked in for more defined cheekbones) showing off his tools. And this one below, his don't-mess-with-me-or-I'll-suck-you-up pose. We love that shop vac by the way. More on it later.



I told him to stop being such a poser because this renovation is going to take us forever if he has to stop and pose for every single shot. At least we know he'll never have a future in modeling for product ads.

And I couldn't help it. I had to get one out of my system before we got knee deep in demo.

The two thumbs up and the fake smile, all very dorky, I know. You don't have to tell me.

Paint Stripper - Burns Or No Burns?

So as I said before, we plan on re-using the cabinet boxes. This meant we had to strip the layers and layers of old paint from the exposed sides of the boxes. I've never stripped paint before so I didn't know what product worked best. What I did know was that I wanted something that had low VOCs (volatile organic compounds). Of course I'd be wearing a mask to strip paint but I wanted to reduce the nasty fumes that would be floating around the house.

Off I went to Lowe's (we have no preference between Lowe's or Home Depot. Lowe's just happens to be closer to our house) and I read through all the labels on shelves. I decided to give this a try. You can't see it but the little green rimmed circle on the label says "Low VOC".

I tried it on the bottom of the cabinets. On the bottle it says "Works in 5 minutes" but I left it on for 30 minutes. I let it sit, scraped it, and nothing happened. Not a speck of paint came off. It didn't even loosen the paint just a little bit. So I tried again thinking I didn't leave it on for long enough. I applied a generous amount with a paint brush and let it sit for an hour. I came back to scrape and this is how much paint I got off.

WOW. On the plus side, it didn't stink that bad. You could smell some fumes when you were close to it but the smell didn't travel much farther than a few feet from where I applied it.

After this failed attempt, I went to Lowe's online and read some reviews of other paint strippers (which I should've done initially). I was starting to think that maybe I'd have to use the harsher paint strippers to get the layers of old paint off. I read some product reviews for the harsher chemicals and this is what one of them said...

"...The would grain that came through was gorgeous. Paint it on, let it sit 15mins, scrap off with plastic spackle scraper. BUT, it's a serious chemical!!! Will burn your skin very fast, even the tiniest drop. Wear long sleeves and jeans and thick rubber gloves. The thin nurses gloves don't work, this stuff burns right through it. The beauty that came through is well worth it though!!"

Umm, no thanks. I like my skin. So this basically scared me back to the safer non-toxic, low VOC, green alternatives. This product got some really good reviews so I went off to Lowe's to grab it.

I applied this paint stripper with a brush and let it sit overnight. I didn't want to have to repeat the process again for longer amounts of time. I figured, surely if it doesn't work overnight then I've bought another dud. This is what I woke up to the next morning....

Winner winner chicken dinner!!! I was so excited. Yes, this is the kind of stuff that gets me excited these days.....don't judge me. I scraped a little of the left side so you could see how easily it comes off. Literally, the paint just fell off in sheets. This product smells a little more than the other one. I still wore a mask but the smell still didn't linger out of our kitchen. And on a very positive note, no burns on my skin! Good thing too because some of it dripped on my arm during the application process.