Time Thief

Thursday, May 08, 2008

The one where I tease you some more

You want to see kitchen stuff, don't you? You've almost earned it, but not quite. You'll have to endure one more post of random stuff that doesn't seem related to the kitchen, but it really is.

Because, you see, when you remodel a kitchen, it can't be contained to just one room. Oh, no. IT has to invade the entire house. Or maybe it's just that a few of these projects were hanging around or in progress anyway. If I lump them into "I'm redoing my kitchen" then I get more empathetic looks. Realistically, it's a mixture of both.

If you came to my house and saw this:




you might think, "Why are there three switches right in the middle of the wall?" Or may be you wouldn't. I don't know. For the 5 or so years since I wired these up, no one has said anything. They actually make a little more sense now that my temporary kitchen is setup right underneath them. Maybe you'd be more concerned about the blanket shoved into the hole in the wall to keep the cold out.

Either way, they (the switches) make a little more sense when you see this. Tada, a fuzzy picture:



I can now get to my car when it's raining without getting wet. Yee-haw! In general, I'm a big fan of detached garages where you will always get wet if you go out to your car during a rainstorm. They open up a whole other wall for windows in a home. They're keen. If, however, you HAVE an attached garage, I'm a firm believer in being able to get into it via some portal other than the 8x7 foot door on the front. Now I can. And I must say it is pretty darn nice despite the pain it was to install (move vent, move wires for said switches, move ceiling joist in garage, work with ridiculously out of plumb framing, freezing freezing cold, and on and on...). It has changed how I use the house though and I'm getting used to that.

This is a TruStile door, so it matches the original door profiles exactly. But, being mostly MDF, this one is very, very heavy. I couldn't lift the whole shebang on my own, so I had to take it out of the jamb to install. Then there was so much finagling involved with the opening, that the jamb (of course) got out of square making the actual door install more difficult. (sigh) But it's in. It shuts tight. Nearly perfect spacing all the way around the jamb. We'll see what happens when it gets humid.

As far as I can tell, none of the 1.5 story houses in da 'hood had doors to their garages. But all of the single-story versions did, where the door opened through the tiniest kitchens you ever did see. Makes no sense. It was all part of JC Nichols' grand plans to make suburbia a success and force neighbors outside to socialize. Not a bad plan, I guess. Many times pre-garage door, the only time I saw my neighbor to the north was when we were both moving from car to house.

Nichols did at least one thing right -- on the streets in North/South direction, he ALWAYS put the garage on the north side of the house. More sun, less cold. It's a good thing. Since I'm on a Nichols thread, here's some trivia: he used to drive his car around the neighborhoods he built to ensure things we neat and tidy and that all garage doors were closed. What was up with that guy and garage doors?! How do I know this useless tidbit? I read about it in here:




It's the history of Prairie Village!! It traces all the way back to early settlers then to the family who gradually sold off their land so JC Nichols could create yet another empire. Guess I shouldn't complain too much; it's my humble little home now. It's very cool to look through all the old photos showing the same houses, but with tiny, tiny trees. See the little shop in the top middle pic? That's my local hardware store where I walk down for caulk and lightbulbs in a pinch.

I'd been interested in getting one of these books for a while. The ex had bought one shortly after he moved out and was feeling some love for the old neighborhood. He finally realized it was stupid for him to keep it and gave it to me. It will stay with the house.

Well, waddya know? I've gone on and on and haven't touched any of the other kitchen-related-non-kitchen-but-still-kitchen-related projects. You do know that anticipation is always better than the real thing, right? Wait here with bated breath.

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