DIY Sunday: 2:00 am Home Improvement

Good Morning....or Evening...


I've been pulling some late nights on a boring work project. Tonight isn't an exception. It's easy to be productive when all the humans and dogs in the house are asleep. As often happens while I'm up late, I decided to do some home improvement. What, you don't grab a hammer at 2:00 am on a regular basis? My PJs and grub clothes have slowly merged into one lovely wardrobe of cut offs and paint splatters. No Mad Men inspired robes in my house. Just old D-Days shirts and mismatched socks. My husband is a lucky man.

Tonight, I was taking a break from my work to read a bit on Young House Love. Talk about inspiration! Easy simple projects with some down to Earth people. I finished my timed break (timing is essential or I'll see the sun rising while reading how to install a light fixture), I got up to get some recharging fuel and looked at my red back splash.

I hate that $%&%#$ back splash.

My husband stole my thunder a few weeks ago when he installed my dishwasher. Since the cabinets he had to move had a lovely kick board of red tile, he got to be the first one to remove tile. Such a simple pleasure taken from me. *Tear* Okay. Not really. I was loving the dishwasher until a few days ago. Then I realized we never bought detergent so now I'm hand washing until I finally remember detergent. (Three trips in and I've managed to forget every. single. time.)



As what normally happens during 2:00 am home improvement, I decided I was going to tackle a project with whatever tools were sitting within grabbing distance. (Today it was a window scraper for paint and a screwdriver). I earned the right to attack some of that red tile myself.

The first one popped off without removing any drywall. "Look at that. That wasn't so hard" I thought to myself. So I kept going. On my fourth one or so, I wasn't so lucky. A big chunk of drywall came off. Oops. I think I better stop going to town with my paint scraper and screwdriver. If my husband asks, it was a gang of women from the Ugly Kitchen Brigade that broke in and started the project.

In an unrelated note, I was motivated by my Thirty One conference to do more active and passive things to help other people. We started collecting pop tabs to donate to the Ronald McDonald House. Perfect use for this random jar we had in the overflowing pantry!

However, I think this week is the week. The week I've been looking forward to for six LONG months. We have to remove the tile. All of it. Even the entire wall of it behind the fridge and the pieces that were haphazardly attached to the ceiling. (yes...CEILING). My husband and I are taking the plunge and buying kitchen cabinets next weekend. I finally did the due diligence of getting estimates from all the local places, and we're back to the original plan of installing an Ikea kitchen. More to come on that on a different post. We've decided to install the main kitchen cabinets while we wait for the mysterious price quote on removing the ugly sci fi wall comes through.

That tile is coming down this week. I am pretty sure the heavens will open up, wars will end and my daughter will start cleaning her room. Or maybe it just feel like it as the waves of joy hit me with every tile in the trash. Weeeeee! (Did I mention it's now 3:00 am and I need sleep?)

Title of this post should be "Blurry iPhone Pictures Galore" My dog is driving me insane by sitting down and chewing dirty off her paws. My carpet is littered with mud and the noise is driving me batty.