Wall-a-thon

Here's the kitchen after a five hour scrape-a-thon. The first two pictures are the After, and the last two are the Before.

Melissa discovered that the paper had to be scraped off the wall, so it took longer than we had anticipated. Also, she decided that the backsplash portion needed to be removed before she papered. So a lot of time was spent trying to pry the backsplash off the wall, resulting in some dents in the wallboard, which she says will be easy to patch.

She reached her husband Steve by phone and he came and cut off the backsplash board with some kind of a narrow bladed saw. This involved turning off the gas supply to the range top and lifting the rangetop so that the black glass base wouldn't be in harm's way during the prying and the sawing. Steve removed the knife drawer when he disconnected the gas line, so when he sawed, a lot of the dust went down into the pots and pans drawer. They will all have to be washed and the drawer wiped out. That's what dishwashers are for!

Melissa was here for 5 hours of peeling and scraping, and we had thought she would only be here for 2 hours or so. She's very calm and confident, and doesn't get rattled - I get the feeling that she's "seen it all". She's coming back tomorrow to patch the wall and apply sizing/primer. Then on Thursday she'll put up the wallpaper.

Dick and I went on an expedition to find storage units. First to Menard's where we got a plastic box to hold some toys we're saving for Dylan - mostly MacLand toys, but not entirely. We also got a three drawer unit for storing the bird feeding supplies. Then to Lowe's where we got some drawer organizers for our deep utensil drawer in the hope that we can sort it out and make things more accessible.

And then a nice surprise! We went out to dinner at Scot's Harbor Grill. It was such a beautiful day, and they have such a great view! It was a real treat, and we had fun watching the boaters. The restaurant was not at all crowded, so it was very relaxing and yummy.