Surprise! Guess What's Behind that Wall!

As my dear sister-in-law, Maria, knows, remodeling is Fun! Fun! Fun! I used to envy all my brothers and sisters and the collective wisdom they have in tackling their remodeling their projects themselves, but I am now even more aware of how completely out of our depth Doug and I are when it comes to this. I didn't even buy the right fan light/dimmer switch today!

But our project is coming along. . . . and I'm hoping (desperately) to be up and running by Thanksgiving.

But my first . . . hesitation. . . was when I saw a splash of the color of the paint I picked out. And no matter how I tried to spin it, I knew I could not live with bright cherry red walls in the kitchen. Bright cherry red would probably be a SIREN call to all the Cedar Waxwings in North America, making them crash through my windows and eat my interior walls! I tried getting some brown paint added to the paint. . . and then decided that I should just cut my losses and buy new paint. Not a big problem, once I got beyond the indecision. . .



The bigger problem was discovered by the contractor. Take a look to the left of our oven, toward the floor. . .



. . . and NO that is not a Nikon lens scandalously, wantonly, lying around among the dust and construction! I'd never!

That's plumbing stuff. Pipes. Kind of like the big honker of a pipe in the wall, just above it, discovered by the contractor to be--well--cracked! As in, leaking. In the wall, between the kitchen and the bathroom.

See! I actually DO know some construction stuff! I know leaking pipes in the wall are bad. So is the resulting mold. . .

And another thing that's bad is how all the plumbing and pulling-out-the-cabinets banging around reveals the problem with the electrical connection and knocks out the lighting in the bathroom, so now you have to wash your dishes in the dark in the bathroom.

But first, we tried flipping some circuit switches. Because that's what you always do when the lights/power goes out; you go down to the laundry room and flip switches. And the lights come back on and all is good.

Except, of course, instead, our crazed flipping of switches just blew out our internet router. Which for us, is NOT simple and easy to repair, and left me going through Serious Blogger Withdrawal.

*sigh* But now I'm reconnected to the internet, have new paint on the wall, have new pipes in the wall. . . . but a lot of dark in the bathroom.

And that dimmer switch? Seems I didn't remember that the switch that turns on the fan is really NOT also connected to the light switch. Oh. . . and the light doesn't dim, either. . . . And eventually after searching the parking lot at LumberMart, I found the receipt (which fell out of the car)for Lowes to return that ridiculously expensive switch.