CP vs. The Kitchen

So, it's a week before Christmas and my mom says "I'm getting a new washer and dryer, do you want mine?". Keep in mind, hers were MAYBE 3 years old, and they're those cool Duet upright ones that use less water, etc. so I said "You betcha!". And so it began...

So I remember that I have gas instead of electricity for my dryer, but Mom's are electric. Then I notice an unused plug that LOOKS like it's 220, and the handyman who's doing the installation checks it and says it's all A-OK. He hooked them up, they look BEAUTIFUL, and he starts them both up to test and then he goes away. Keep in mind, it's bone-chillingly cold that day, and I decide it'd be nice to have toasty warm sheets that night. So I put ALL my blankets in the washer (it's incredible how much it will hold) and then move them to the dryer before heading out to Ben and Marlena's to open Christmas gifts.

I get home from the Halls' house, and open the dryer. I'm SO ready for my nice, toasty blankets. What I have instead is a swamp! Everything was still soaking wet, but nice and WARM and wet. So I have to sleep under the DOGS' blanket to stay warm, thanks to the hole in my bedroom wall (relevant post) that leaks cold air. In retrospect, I should have slept in the living room. The next morning, I did my research. Sounds like the electrical outlet was 110, not 220.

A digression - If I were the guy that designs dryers, and those dryers require a certain voltage to be effective, I think that I'd probably build in something like a light or a buzzer or an error code that says "Not enough juice." Instead, the dryer lights up properly, all the controls work, it spins around and says "I'm drying these clothes, merry merry merry" while it's really doing DIDDLY.

So, I go to Home Depot and buy a snazzy electric gauge. Yep, 110. Stinking handyman! So he comes back out and re-wires it, and all is right in Laundryland.

So then I'm home sick from work, a couple days after Christmas. "I am tired of not having a dishwasher," I think. So I go to the appliance store and buy one. It's swanky, stainless-steel and has all kinds of bells and whistles. My house was built in 1930, so it doesn't know what a dishwasher IS. Time to start fixing that...

So I figure out which cabinet needs to come out, a 24" unit of drawers next to the sink. Getting a single section of cabinetry out of the middle of your kitchen without messing up the countertop is NOT an easy task. It takes most of a day for me to use a hammer and wonderbar to break it out, piece by piece. I manlied it right out of there, and was left with a nifty hole. What is that IN the hole? It's an electric cable sticking out of the wall, just waiting on a dishwasher! Either I got really lucky, or someone was planning ahead during a remodel in the last 70 years. I don't know which, but I was REALLY happy to not have to run any new wire!

The handyman came back, and now there's a dishwasher! I washed a TON of dishes in the first day or two, and love it to pieces. The kitchen's finally starting to look like something! So now I'm looking at the cabinets in the kitchen, but that's not going to happen today, probably not even tomorrow. Home Depot has some nice unfinished oak cabinets that are affordable, so I think I'm going to tear out the upper section of the cabinets (I already tore out the furdown that took up a lot of room, which looks like a warzone currently) and start replacing them one at a time.

Pics of what I've done so far in the next day or two, right now CP is sleepy!

-CP