Raven's New Friends

We are spending the Memorial Day Weekend in Kingsport, TN and driving around with the dogs we have discovered that Raven wants to bark at cows. We thought we were safe when we headed into town, but these guys still got her going!

Life’s been a blur….

Here’s the latest on the kitchen.  We have countertops and appliances in place.  If you haven’t checked out Craigslist we highly recommend it – we were able to outfit the kitchen for $1000 and that includes a range and microwave combo that have never been used!  Sorry this picture doesn’t show the appliances but the old ones are in the center of the room awaiting their sale on Craigslist!

I must say I was thrilled to get a kitchen sink back and the dishwasher was a great boon, but once I had a range, fridge and pantry in the same room – I felt like I’d dies and gone to heaven!

Most of the push is because I have taken a new position and we will need to move to Tennessee.  I start tomorrow and have decluttered all that I can.  It really quite therapeutic.  I can officially say that I have removed college from my life – particularly all my college notebooks!!!  Fear not all that could be recycled has been!

Tomorrow is a new adventure and today is aimed at getting there.  i have no idea the next time I’ll have personal access to a computer – but know that I’m thinking and hope to catch up one day!

In the meantime – know the puppies are doing well.  They look wonderful in the new kitchen.  Black really dresses up the gateway gray.  The last two weeks between jobs and being at home has been precious.  I will miss them terribly!

It's finally gone...

Here’s where we left the kitchen in the last entry two weeks ago – The cabinets were out, the side wall taken down to the studs.

Since then there’s new insulation and electrical in that wall. And the sink cabinet was taken out. We did keep the sink by propping up the countertop with 2x4s…

In the ripping out, we found a vintage bottle cap…

The cabinet had to go so we could take the flooring down to the subfloor. I may have mentioned it before – so excuse the repeat if so – but that was a layer of linoleum on 1/4” plywood, then three layers of linoleum that had been tarred to the heart of pine flooring. All was unusable, so out it goes.

And in goes 3/4” plywood. Here’s a tip for all your DH. This furniture grade plywood was $5 a sheet. It came from the dunnage pile at the local distributor. These sheets made it there by being dropped to bumped by the forktruck. I honestly couldn’t find what was wrong with them. In any case, the new subfloor will be cherry, mahagony, birch, and figured maple…. Raven is pleased with the first two sheets of cherry…

During the week, James was able to put up the sheetrock. The next Friday all the flooring was taken up and plywood was down. Saturday was time for the ceiling. Here’s my father and James putting up 4 x 4 foot sheets of beadboard in an alternating pattern to cover up the blown ceiling. Oh and no more dishwasher…

Then Sunday was the removal of the sink. I’m therefore declaring the kitchen gone! We rebuilt the back wall and put in a new window. You may be able to see that the left window is partially blocked by an exterior wall. Why? I have no idea, but it’s fixed now!

The puppies are still being great troopers – especially when they have to spend the day in the backyard away from pneumatic tools. Here they were able to get a moment inside and chose it to admire the flowers I’ve been planting in the front…

Down to the Essentials

A few have asked how Raven and Shadow are getting along.  And my answer would be. “Quite well considering the amount of changes that they are being put through.”  We’re about to hit week four since Raven came to live with us.  She learning all sorts of things and so are we.  I couldn’t pass up this one of them “holding hands”.  They really do have some sweet moments – and then there are others, but overall they both seem happy with the deal.

So what have we been putting them through?  A kitchen renovation – might I say a complete kitchen renovation.  I mean complete in the terms of take it all out and start all over.  I’m afraid I don’t have a photo from the very beginning – but you can at least see how we’ve started today.  You can see a hole on the end.  There was a set of top cabinets there above the range and freezer.I can tell you I’m so ready to get rid of that burnt orange.  I was cleaning out the attic and found pictures from my high school home with this same color.  I figured I must have lived over 20 years with a kitchen this color – it must something from the 70s or 80s. One layer of linoleum has been taken up with plywood on the back.  We found there are another 3 layers before one gets to the pine wood flooring.  Above is layer number 2 from the top.Back to today’s work – first we took out the bottom cabinets.  These had been built in place, so the only recourse was to take them out piece by piece – see the pile of wood waiting for me to remove the nails????Then we took out the top cabinets on the wall and around the sink.  I just loved the parallelograms James was making as he worked them off the wall.  Then sheetrock was removed and the blown insulation bagged up to be placed in the attic.  We’ll replace these with pretty pink rolls – you can see how the blown insulation sinks leaving gaps.  Oh and there used to be a window in that wall!Here’s how we ended the day – leaving one grouping of bottom cabinets so we can have a sink and dishwasher as long as possible. Shadow is inspecting the work, but Raven is satisfied and let’s us know with an enthusiastic tail wagging.

Shadow comes to give his report that it has been a productive day – but where’s dinner???  (I love the perspective in this one – his feet look so tiny compared to real life!)

Tomorrow James builds the cabinets and takes them over to a refinisher who will paint them for us in his spray booth.  Hopefully we’ll be ready for them when he delivers them.  We’ve got to get the floor and the remaining walls down to studs, then rebuild back up to start putting in cabinets.  If not, every room may be graced with a cabinet awaiting their turn to be installed!

There you have it – I feel like I’m living in that campervan in New Zealand again – trying to figure out how to live on very little!

The New Addition

We knew from the beginning that Shadow was a social dog.  We did what we could be doggie daycare and playdates.  They certainly helped, but ultimately it was a constant conversation of what we could do this week for him.  Hiking was good, but of course the snow and ice made that difficult this winter and was only good for weekends.  We finally brought up the subject of another dog.  said we wanted two after we lost Dakota last year, but I really thought the two of them would add up to 100 pounds rather than what we have in Shadow right now!  But I can't help it - I'm in love with this dog and I'll do so much to make him happy.  And the search began.

What does a 100 pound 2 year old male black lab want???  We decided after research a slightly smaller (60-80 pounds), older (4-7 years old) female lab would do.  Let me tell you how difficult it can be to find such a thing.  The Greenville Humane Society where we adopted Shadow could only produce a 40 pound dog right now.  We started to hit all the labrador rescue groups.  We found that in general these labs were 2 years old or 10 years old.  So we kept looking.  Found two in Greenwood at 3 years old.  Getting closer.  They even had a purebred male at 5 years old, but Shadow is such a strong alpha male....

Then we hit every shelter in the upstate and there was a possibility of a black labrador mix at 5 years old at the Spartanburg Humane Society.  They are just as convenient as the Greenville one.  We called to see if she was still there and asked the big question:  "How big is she?"  The woman on the other end said, "She weighed in at 74.2 pounds."  (I love the 0.2!)  We told them we were coming to check her out and have her meet our dog.  They were all ready when we got there - even put a "hold" on her kennel so all would know she was spoken for.  They touched noses from the first moment, ran around the run to sniff all they could, and even wrestled a bit.  The tails never stopped. 

So a couple of days later we were able to pick up our new girl!  Let me introduce Raven...

We had left her there to be spayed since she had been picked up as a stray just last week.  We had made all sorts of arrangements to take her to the vet so she could recouperate before living with Shadow.  We made it half way home before they called and exclaimed, "We forgot to tell you she had already been spayed!"  Life at home changed immediately.  I was glad we had already bought a second set of bowls, rawhide chews and a dog bed!

Things started in the backyard with Shadow.  Isn't she a pretty girl?  Such style and grace...

You can really see the mix better in her with Shadow right there.  She actually reminds me of a border collie in her grace and the way she holds her ears back.

We've only dealt with a couple of fights - one over the Kong in the background above...  They've been short lived and I think just part of finding each other's place.  They did spend most of the first evening facing each other while they watched each other devour a footlong rawhide bone.  I think I need to buy stock in rawhides...And they immediately took to the favorite pasttime of watching birds (and cats) from the bedroom window.

I'll work to get some better pictures, but I just couldn't wait to share about our new addition!