Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

As I was reading the last few entries of our blog, I noticed a pattern...

It has snowed or iced at least 3 of the last 4 weekends. And guess what it is doing right now as I write this? It's snowing. And guess what it is supposed to do tomorrow morning? You guessed it! You would think from reading our blog that Missouri is covered in about 10 feet of snow right now, but the snow and ice is just coming in little bits at a time--enough to make for treacherous driving conditions for about a day or two--then it warms up for a couple of days and melts. Then it starts again, just in time for the weekend.

Last weekend, we knew another snowstorm was coming, but through sheer determination (we ARE going to get those cabinets painted) and a little bit of stupidity (it won't be THAT bad), we decided to "beat" the storm. So we got up early, loaded up the family, and headed to the house.

We got started painting the cabinets while Max played and, by some miracle, he decided to take a 3-hour nap. We took that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to FINISH painting the kitchen cabinets (woohoo!). Joe finished painting the doors while I worked on the cabinets on the wall.

Yep, I'm sitting on the windowsill with my feet in the kitchen sink.

There will likely be a little touching-up to do and we need to re-attach the doors and install new knobs and pulls. But the picture below may give you a little taste of what it will look like when it is finished.
Those of you who have been following our blog know that--working at our pace--these finishing touches will probably take at least a month. But somehow it feels "done" and that feels really good. The kitchen was the last room to paint downstairs. All that's left is the small entry downstairs (which will, as you remember, require removing and stripping trim) and two bedrooms upstairs (which we won't paint until we have some construction done). So we can put down the paintbrushes...at least for a little while.

And while we were triumphantly painting the cabinets, it started to rain. And then it got colder and started to ice. And then it got even colder and started to snow. By the time we left, this was the scene in downtown Lathrop
It was a slow drive home, but we made it safe and sound. We were supposed to go out to dinner that night with some friends, but our sitter couldn't make it with the nasty weather. So, we put the baby to bed, cracked open a bottle of wine, and watched the snow fall while we basked in the glory of completing the painting portion of our kitchen.

Home Improvement Pop Quiz

Q: How can you tell when you've been logging too many hours in home-improvement mode?


A: You use a utility knife to cut your frozen pizza.

Merry Christmas everyone!

How to transform your kitchen for less than $100 (or, "Are we done painting yet?")

As Joe already mentioned, we are in painting hell. Our recent efforts have focused on the kitchen. I was hoping I'd have the complete "after" pictures ready to post by now but, alas, mother nature hasn't cooperated with us the last couple of weekends. Ice and snow have limited our ability to travel to the country estate. So I am going to ruin the suspense and go ahead an post a few "almost after" pictures of our kitchen work. (*If you don't care about the kitchen and want to see gratuitous pictures of Max, skip to the end.)

First, the wall paint. Here's the cutting in shot:

I actually really like the green in the kitchen. But it just doesn't go with anything else. The counters and floor are ivory and the trim is true white. The combo just didn't work for us. So we decided to paint the walls to match the countertops and floor (the color is Sherwin Williams Toasted Pine Nut). That way, the walls, counters, trim, and floor have a sort of cream on white thing going on. It makes the cream/white combo seem deliberate instead of clashing.

"But that's so boring," you say. "Why would you want to paint your kitchen Johnson County Beige?" (Sorry JoCo readers, but you know it's true). In a bold (at least by our standards) move, we decided to put color where it counts--on the cabinets.

The decision on whether to paint the cabinets was quite a debate. Some people (my Mom) were adamantly against it. Others (my friends Sarah and Lindsey, who have or have had painted cabinets) told us to go for it. The fact is, those cabinets are dated. We hated the wood finish. We despised the carving in the doors. So we figured we couldn't make it much worse.

So now, I'm going to present to you the Gagnon method of painting cabinets. We guarantee that, by using our method, you too can get your kitchen cabinets painted in about a month (or two...hell, it may take you three months--we don't know since we're not done yet).

First, you learn to use a drill and take off all the cabinet doors, stripping a couple of screws in the process.

Next, you wash all the doors and stack them in a neat little pile on the kitchen floor. You foolishly believe you will be able to completely prime and paint them the following week.
When you get ready to start priming, your husband will tell you that the cabinets must be sanded before he will let you begin priming. You make him do that.


Then, you prime all the cabinets, drawers, and doors. During this process, you will lay on the floor, climb on the counters, and stand in the kitchen sink. When you are finished, you will have primer in your hair, on your bottom, all over your hands and shirt. Your husband will sigh and ask you how you can possibly get so much primer all over yourself in just one day.

Finally, after the primer dries, you notice that your hand and wrist are cramping from using a paintbrush to prime for 6 hours. Your husband will give you a rest and begin putting a coat of paint on the cabinets (Sherwin Williams Bunglehouse Blue).
You will be pretty encouraged by the results, but still nervous about how this is all going to look when you get done. You will realize that it may take you another month to put the cabinet doors back on since you did not mark them when you took them off.

OK, now it's gratuitous picture time...
*Here's a picture of Max when we took him to see Santa a couple of weeks ago. I'm pretty sure this was the worst moment of his life.
*And here is a much happier picture of Max wearing his own Santa hat.

Painting Pictures

Kendra and I have been painting. And painting. And painting. For a long time now. But we have made progress; only two rooms remain to be painted. We've done the before/after thing with the playroom, office, and the living room, but I don't think we've shown off the parlor or dining room yet.

Here is a before picture of the parlor:

Note the white walls, and the dated ceiling fan. We like the wainscoting, and will keep it, but we couldn't live with the white walls. The parlor adjoins the living room through a set of pocket doors and--most of the time--each room is visible from the other. We had used a light green color to paint the living room, so we wanted something fairly neutral for the parlor. We settled on "Natural Tan" from Sherwin Williams:
The Natural Tan adds just a touch of color without clashing with the green in the living room, which is the effect that we were going for. As you can see, we also swapped out the ceiling fan to match the one in the living room.

We've covered the dining room before (in all its mirrored glory), so I won't re-post a "before" picture. The walls were a very rich red. We liked the red, but with the stain on the trim it just made it too dark in there. We lightened up the room with Inviting Ivory from Sherwin Williams (who names these colors?!). In addition to the nice contrast with the wood, it makes the room seem bigger. Here is an after picture of the dining room (the notorious mirrors are on the wall just left of the camera; the living room is to the right):

A gratuitous picture of Max, due to the
demands of "anonymous" commentators
(we know who you are, Willis).

I must say that painting is the least sexy of the home improvement jobs so far, and I certainly will not be sad when the last coat is rolled on the walls.

An Unexpected Christmas Gift

I posted last week about the winter storm that hit Missouri. This past weekend, we were hit with another round of ice and snow. Undeterred, we managed to make the trek up to Lathrop and work on the kitchen. That, however, is the subject of another day; this post concerns the generosity of new friends.

Earlier in the week, I received an email from our new insurance agent, Aaron Greer. Aaron is about my age, and is one of the few people Kendra and I know in Lathrop (along with our neighbors to the north, Rachel and Emma, who introduced themselves a couple weeks ago--but now I'm getting sidetracked). Apart from getting us a good price on our auto and home policy, Aaron is someone I've grown to rely on for letting me know the ins and outs of the Lathrop community.

Anyway, Aaron sent me an email to let me know that the ice storm hadn't caused too much damage to the trees at the country estate. He did mention that one tree did have some broken limbs. I replied that I hoped it was the ugly, drooping tree by the porch; Kendra and I had planned to have that cut down anyway. I went about my merry way the rest of the week, and didn't think much of the conversation--other than to realize how fortunate it is to have someone keeping on eye on our place.

Then, when Kendra and I arrived at the house on Saturday, we saw a pickup truck in the yard, and a man with a chainsaw doing violent things to the hated tree blocking the front porch.


That's Aaron on the right, dressed appropriately for the weather and the work at hand; and that's me on the left, dressed like a damn city boy.

After a couple hours work in the freezing temperatures, Aaron got the tree down and graciously hauled off the remains. Kendra and I were thrilled to have one of our "problems" eliminated by the generosity of someone who has known us for less than three months. The kindness of those in small towns was one of the reasons prompting our move in the first place, and it was nice to have that decision validated, at least in a small way.

Here is a "before" shot; notice the tree on the left side of the frame:
The tree doesn't look terribly intrusive in the photo, but it looked 100x worse in real life. It was ugly, it blocked the view from the porch, and it did not frame the house well from the street. Here is the house after the removal of the offending tree:

Much better, at least in our opinions.

So Aaron, if you are reading this, thanks again. We owe you big time.

997, 998, 999...1,000!

Last night at 8:59 pm, Gonna Eat a Lot of Peaches recorded its 1,000th visitor. While that is not a big deal for most websites, I am utterly shocked that this many people take time to read the (somewhat) regular updates on our little project. From traffic statistics, I would guess that there are about 15-20 regular readers of the blog, and we are grateful that y'all are reading. It certainly makes it easier to spew forth posts when you know that there is a dedicated--albeit small--audience for their consumption.

I know the suspense is killing everybody--the 1,000th visitor was from Little Rock, Arkansas, having been referred to our blog from Houseblogs.net. Come forward to claim your prize!

Weather-Shortened Weekend

Mother nature did her best to make sure we didn't get any work done on the house, sending an ice storm across the state of Missouri this weekend. Not wanting to face a shut-out, we braved the elements and made the drive north to the country estate. Even if we couldn't put in two solid days of work, by God, we were going to get SOMETHING done.

Forecasts called for things to get nasty Saturday afternoon, so we figured we had a few good hours in the morning to knock out some projects. We made it to the house at 10:00 am, and made surprising progress in 2 1/2 hours. I managed to get the ceiling fans wired and spinning with the help of my new voltage tester from Home Depot. Satisfied that the house wasn't going to burn down, we turned our attention to the kitchen. Earlier in the week, Kendra had supervised the delivery of our new fridge and cooktop (as previewed in an earlier post), and I must say that the fridge sits astride our kitchen like a Colossus:

The thing seems huge, but I think that's just because we had gotten used to not having a fridge in there.

By the end of our workday, we were able to get the kitchen about 95% cut in, too. With some good weather, and some hard work, we should be able to get the remainder of the walls painted, and the cabinets primed and painted this weekend. That would make the kitchen pretty much "done," and just leave two bedrooms upstairs to be painted.

Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun...with Double Mortgage Payments!

The moment of truth is here; our first mortgage payment on the country estate is due. I'm still holding on to the check, because I can't bring myself to pay it yet. We are a little disappointed, because we haven't sold our urban highrise yet, but, on the other hand, we are also very excited about the house. So we'll keep plugging away, working on the weekends, and hoping a buyer materializes for the urban highrise.

This should be a good week/weekend for us. Tomorrow our new refrigerator and cooktop will be delivered. We haven't planned out the weekend, but it would be cool to get work done in the kitchen to go along with the new appliances. As always, we'll keep you posted about what's going on, and this time we'll try to remember to bring our camera so we can post pictures.

An Almost Perfect Weekend

Once again, I forgot the camera. Well, I actually forgot the battery. The bottom line is that there are no pictures to post right now, but there is some good news to report. Remember that big list I posted last week? We knocked most of it out this weekend. Paint the dining room? Check. Finish the window trim in the guest bedroom? Check. Touch-up the playroom, guest bedroom, living room, and parlor? Check. Fix the ductwork? Check!

We didn't get the ceiling fan installed, but it's close. When Joe took the old one down, all four wires were green. He marked them so he would know which was which, but somehow the markings rubbed off while he was working. Now we don't know which wire is which. So the fan is all but connected and Joe bought some gadget to test the wires to see which one is "hot" (I am so down with the home repair lingo).

We didn't start pulling off trim in the entry yet either. After much discussion with the guy at Sherwin Williams, I purchased two types of stripper. One is a paste meant for the stuff we'll strip on the wall (the windows). The other is a stronger liquid that we'll use for the stuff we'll take down (trim and doors). I am reasonably confident that these will lift off a fair amount of the stain and that we'll be able to use another stain--probably something reddish--to balance the green that is left and turn it brown. This is a job that will probably need to be done outside--or at least with all the windows and doors open for ventilation. It was cold and rainy over the weekend, so we decided not to start that project.

Finally, I took all the cabinet doors off the downstairs bathroom and the kitchen and Joe and I washed them. Those bad boys are getting primed and painted in the upcoming weekend. We also have plans to paint the kitchen walls AND the new appliances are arriving this week. So expect some "after" pictures of the kitchen soon.

We decided to take a vacation from the house on Sunday, so the three of us read the paper in our pajamas all morning, went out for lunch, and did some shopping. I think that recharged us a bit.

So all in all it was a VERY productive weekend at the country estate and a good weekend for the Gagnon family. The only downer? The Tigers loss to OU on Saturday. And the BCS bowl snub on Sunday night. But we wouldn't be Mizzou fans if we didn't have something to be disappointed about, right?