Knock A Hole In It!

So, my lovely wife came up with a great idea.. (She's legendary when it comes to good ideas.) We've been pondering for some time a kitchen remodel, but it's a daunting concept. So we started talking about doing it in stages. This would have a three-fold purpose. 1. It will be more cost-effective to do it in chunks instead of all at once. 2. It allows there to be a minimal amount of downtime, when the kitchen is out of commission. (We gotta eat!) 3. It allows us to continue to cultivate and grow more great (legendary) ideas as we go.

Phase One involved three key steps. Replacing the kitchen window, removing the corner and south facing cabinets, and putting a "window" in the kitchen wall between the living room and the kitchen. I have replaced all the bedroom windows so far, so I tackled that first. All went great except, The sill fell off, (a bit rotten) and then in my haste, I chucked it in the trash before I measured it! OOPS! Well, it ended up being a good thing, because I was able to make the new sill a bit longer to accommodate the three inch trim. Oh, and I was a bit rusty on my trim angles, so I get to redo that. ARGH!

Next was ripping out the south facing cabinets. Well ripping those out was about as fun as wrestling a 350 lb. porcupine. I have to say, that without my Grandpa's Go-Devil, this would have been an impossible task. What is a Go-Devil you might ask? Well lets just park this story, and start another one.

A Go-Devil is an infamous, (well almost) Hooten invention. Roy Hooten, (my Grandpa) developed this tool eons ago. I hate to say it, but it's not patented, but it probably should be. A simple person, might just call it a pry bar, but it's way cooler than just that. It's an old leaf spring, (under the truck bed.) that has been cut in half and one end has been rounded off, and ground down to a fine edge. Sounds simple, but the resulting tool is AMAZING! It's a must for replacing windows, or beating rabid squirrels, or prying objects when you don't want to tear up a wall! Many thanks must go to Grandpa Roy for his invention!


Back to the real story. Now comes the fun part. Putting a hole in the wall between the kitchen and the living room! That first hammer blow, was timid. Wait NO it was not! I about drove my hammer through both sides of sheet rock. At that point Rachel went downstairs, because it was well, scary. All in all one of the most fulfilling projects I have attempted yet. Another one of Rach's legendary ideas comes to fruition...





Until Next Time...