January PCCX

I'm using the room-by-room track.  This month I'm doing the kitchen and dining room.

Challenges:

• The giant hole in the ceiling.  It's something I'd like to see repaired by the end of the month but I don't know if that's likely.
• Really bad linoleum, coming up in pieces in several places.  There's no hope of repairing that this month and probably not this year.  I should be able to trim back the loose places and at least make it look a little better.
• Difficult to work with cabinets.
• A whole lot of extraneous china and crystal that is never used and much of it isn't even mine.  There is no flinging allowed, so it's just a matter of cleaning it all and reorganizing so it hopefully takes up less space.

I'll spend this week catching up on basics and then head into deep-cleaning and organizing.

Is anyone else working PCCX at all this year?

A small triumph

I *finally* really tackled something.  And naturally I come to tell y'all about it and I find myself half an hour into a 2 hour image upload maintenance for Blogger and pictures are disabled.  So if you want to see pics you'll have to check my photo gallery (link in sidebar), the last 5 photos.

We have this "desk".  I use the term loosely because it's badly proportioned and arranged and is basically unusable as an actual desk, as in to sit at, even without a computer.  It was A's for quite a while to just store stuff on but then she got a big art desk and didn't need it (or have room for it) anymore.  Since then it's been in the corner of the living room holding some books and some of B's larger school stuff and the board games.

It's been bugging me for a while because in addition to being badly designed it's also not terribly well made.  The bottom shelf, both sides, and the slide out "keyboard tray" (which no one could really use for a keyboard) were all coming apart and it was only a matter of time before the whole thing collapsed.  Nothing was missing or broken, the pegs had just come completely apart, and the tray was off the track.

I got some wood glue - don't know if it'll help anything but it makes me feel better - and forced everything back together on the bottom.  I cleaned it off the best I could, everything but the paint splotches.  It's simply not worth the time or effort to try to get those off and it's not a showpiece or anything so they stay and I'm not fussed about it.  I found a disturbing amount of junk under it and got rid of all of that.  I moved the books to another bookshelf and put what was left on the upper shelves away from E, dusting off as I went.  I wanted to get rid of those guitars (Rock Band and Guitar Hero) altogether but I don't have anywhere else to put them so I did a cursory dusting of them, what I could reach.  I should've mopped or scrubbed or otherwise cleaned the floor while I had the desk out but I was somewhat limited in time and frankly didn't feel like breaking out more tools.  I can get under it now without moving the desk so I can still do the floor later when I do the rest of the room.

So there's my first big push...only 3 1/3 weeks into PCCX.  Yay?

Cramming lots in early

The insurance adjuster is due between 11 and 12 today. I don't know where he's coming from or from how far out he will call to let me know he's on his way, but he did say he'd make that call so I'm hoping I have half an hour or so.

While the kids got a ton of work done yesterday, there is still much more that needs doing before he gets here. I've rallied the troops and gotten all the "public" areas swept and picked up and dishes going. I would still like to clear and clean the kitchen counters and mop as much of the floor as possible.

None of this can be done without breaks however, so here I am to introduce zones 2-8, also known as the rest of my kitchen.

Ok, there's a lot of pictures and I don't know how to put a slide show in a Blogger post, so if you want to see pictures try this gallery.

The freezer and area in front of it is zone 2. The kitchen breakfront (as opposed to the dining room breakfront, coming later) and the area in front of it are zone 3. The refrigerator and in front of it is zone 4, ditto the stove in zone 5. Zone 6 is the pantry and can shelf and, yes, the floor in front of and immediately beside them. Zone 7 is the right side counter, cabinets, and floor to the dining room, and zone 8 is the left side counter, cabinets, and floor to the dining room.

There's the lousy linoleum throughout, including a large area of deep gouges in zones 2 and 3 where previous owners had apparently had a table and chairs, pieces of it coming up at the edge of the dining room, back door, and in front of the dishwasher, and bumps in zone 8 where there is a lot of water damage to the wood floor beneath - not related to our current ceiling issues.

Behind the pantry is the cheap paneling continuing from zone 1. Above all the counters is a backsplash of the same cheap laminate as the counters, complete with peeling daisy border. Two more windows: one above the sink and one at the far left of the counter.

The biggest problem in the kitchen, aside from general mayhem and horrible decorating, is bugs. All the rain has driven bugs inside and I haven't yet gotten a handle on it. So far it's (mostly) confined to the kitchen and I'm determined to keep it there. Well, get it gone really, but before that keep it from spreading.

So that's the rest of the kitchen and the before pictures, and some significant work is getting done today. Signing off until the afters...

Day 8 - good intentions

I started Monday off pretty well really. I dove into PCCX with my silly diagram and started on one end of my kitchen. But I didn't get back to it after the first 45 minutes I spent on the buffet. I think I spent the majority of the afternoon/evening playing on the Wii. Boy, I'm just doing great here, aren't I?

As it turns out, as nice as it was to start at #1, I should have started at the other end of the kitchen, because I spoke to the insurance company over the weekend and we should have an insurance adjuster coming to look at the hole in the ceiling. That end of the kitchen is what I call "the pit".

Have I mentioned the hole before? I don't remember if I have and I'm too lazy and it's too late to go looking. There's a leak in the roof. Don't know where or how; Chris has been up there on the roof and didn't see anything. Of course, he doesn't see the mustard that's on the shelf 6 inches from his nose. Anyway, leaky roof begets hole in ceiling, hole in ceiling begets leaking kitchen, rain begets larger hole, more rain begets ever growing holes and cracks, and unseasonable storms beget ceiling crashing down in the middle of the night. That was Friday night I think. Anyway, we're going to see if there will be any help in getting it fixed. I'm of two minds about that, because we don't have the deductible but at the same time a real fix is better than a temporary fix. We'll see.