Remodeling – The Knitting Doctor

12 Weeks!

Oh my. John and I are both in love with this little boy. Hank is an absolute delight, even with the bazillion potty walks, and the daily 8PM attacks of the “zoomies”. Toddlers are toddlers, whatever the species.

He’s a smart little boy, we are making good progress on potty-training, and he is learning several commands that have improved his manners already. We’ve also been working on developing a daily schedule for him (and me!), which has been a bit challenging with the bathroom remodel. Lots of noise, and lots of strange guys in and out of the house keep him entertained, but also a bit wound up.

If you follow me on social media, you’ve likely seen these photos, but here they are again.

Speaking of the bathroom remodel, it is close to done. There are a few sheet rock repairs that need finishing, and it will be a done deal. There is a whole story with this that deserves its own blog post, so I’ll save that for later.

Last but not least, we are FINALLY getting our oven in the kitchen. Our old Viking gas wall oven died on us last fall. Not 2022, but 2021. We ordered a new gas oven, had the old one taken out, did the bit of remodel needed so the new one would fit. And have been waiting ever since. 14 months waiting on parts. There aren’t many gas ovens made, and the space where the oven goes doesn’t have 220 electrical access. Putting that in would have meant tearing up an awful lot of walls/ceiling to bring a line into the kitchen, so we are stuck with the gas option. It was actually delivered here on Monday, and the guys are here installing it right now.

Here’s hoping it fits the hole in the wall.

Barrels, monkeys

I’m not sure how much fun barrels of monkeys really are. This crazy shawl is more fun than a barrel full of pretty much anything.

The pattern is Snark-o-Meter, a mystery knit-a-long shawl by Casapinka. For someone who finds plain stockinette sweaters and socks a blast to knit, this much color and texture is almost more fun than I can stand.

The colors and stitch patterns change just about the time you get bored, but it’s still an easy enough pattern overall to not be too mentally taxing (i.e. still works for binge-watching a favorite show).

I also have the yarn and patterns for a couple of her other shawls, including the Crown Wools and the Sharon Show. Both look equally fun to knit. All three are big squishy fingering weight rectangular pieces with lots of color and texture, so should be fun to wear as well.

Everything else is OK in Chez Knitting Doctor world. We are recovered from the Great Summer of Visiting Relatives. I love them all, but it did seem like every time we woke up, there was another bunch moving into our guest rooms.

We’re now heading into the season of major home maintenance. Our master bath has been in need of some upgrades/repairs ever since we moved in here two decades ago. And our kitchen wall oven has been unreliable for close to a year. It’s a gas oven, and it sort of works as long as the temp stays under about 400 degrees. Anything higher than that, or if it is on too long, and it just shuts off. It’s an old Viking, and they don’t make the parts to repair it. When we remodeled the kitchen several years ago, we discovered that there was never a 220v outlet installed in the kitchen. Gas ovens in general are hard to find, and quite expensive, but it would be a major project at this point to run a 220 line to the kitchen. We’ve finally found the right oven (and cooktop, since that needed replacement also), and it’s on order. And we’re at the beginning stages of the bathroom remodel planning.

But we’re not spending money on travel, so we have more cash available for home upgrades, right? We’ve recently canceled another big trip that was supposed to happen in October. This was already rescheduled from last spring, so it’s beyond irritating that we’re still in this pandemic largely due to selfish idiots who won’t get vaccinated.

And I’ll leave it at that. Back to fun knitting!

Now For The Floor Repair

We’re in the middle of fixing the warped wood floor mess caused by the rat escapade from late December. The torn out walls have been patched and everything repainted.

The floor guys are here today tearing out the damaged wood that was warped enough to need replacing. It will need to be open to the subfloor for about a week before they get the new floor in. Then sanding, staining and finishing. The whole main level needs to be refinished since it’s one continuous wood floor. So all of our furniture will need to be warehoused for the duration starting a week from today.

Sigh.

Closet Capers

I promised an update on the closet re-do. Here’s what it looked like in October, when the shelves pulled loose from the wall. We finally got it finished this past week, and we’re close to having stuff back in the closets. Here’s what it all looked like.

John doing the prep work.

The temporary closet.

Painting done!

My closet done!

John’s closet done!

And here’s what they look like mostly reloaded. We did a little more decluttering while we were emptying boxes back into the closet.

It’s amazing how much more usable space we have. I even have some empty shelf space. I was able to get some knitting related stuff off the floor of my office and in baskets on the shelves, which in turn makes my office much more usable. It’s a win!

On the knitting front, no photos, but I made a stupid mistake on the Big Pink thing last night while knitting in front of the television. I screwed up a plain knit row of all things, inserting part of a patterned row right at the beginning of what was supposed to be a plain row. Of course I didn’t discover it till I got all the way around to that section again. In trying to fix it, I screwed it up even more, and now I’m tinking back about 600 stitches to get to that section so I can fix it. I think this is my own fault for saying something in the last post like “I only have about 6 rows left”. Please send whiskey, before I stab myself in the heart with a knitting needle out of desperation.

A Couple Of FOs

Well, that was a little longer than I intended to be away! Since the last post, we finished the kitchen remodel, went to Washington DC, I finished a pair of socks, and I’m 99.9% done with that Peacock Shawl. Whew. I even went to work once or twice.

Here’s how the kitchen turned out. We couldn’t be more pleased with it.

The last photo is the powder room. Of course, the counters in the kitchen are already a lot more cluttered than in those photos.

We went to DC last week to visit a good friend whose wife (also a good friend!) is stationed in Baghdad. We had a great time, did a lot of wonderful touristy things, and ate and drank some lovely food and wine. Here’s just one photo of me and another knitter I found.

We of course took tons of photos, which I won’t terminally bore you with. Here’s a link to John’s Picasa album if you are interested.

And I finished those Wicked Witch socks while we were in DC. Our friend Byron lives out in Arlington, so we did a lot of subway riding, giving me lots of knitting time.

Project Details:

Yarn: Tempted Good Grrl sock yarn, in the color Wicked Witch.
Needles: Knit Picks Harmony, size 2.25.
Pattern: Um, do you have to ask any more? These were 72 stitch socks.
Started: December 2008
Finished: April 2009
For: Me
What I learned: Don’t post photos of sock yarn unless you are willing to buy more for family members who want some of their very own. My niece Angie loved this color so much that I bought a second hank for some for her. I thought about sending her these, but I think they’ll be a bit small. She has even bigger feet than I do. Plus I love them too much. You’ll get yours, my pretty.
I also learned that I probably should quit buying sock patterns and pattern books. I always end up knitting the same thing.

And I finished the knitting on the Peacock. I just need to wash and block it, which will happen this week. Here’s a finished-but-not-blocked photo.

Next time, the finished Peacock, and what’s new on the needles.

New Counters!

The granite counters got installed yesterday. They are just gorgeous, so I thought I’d show some photos. No knitting here, so if that’s what you came for, move along. Nothing to see here…

This is the fancy-schmancy sink we got for the powder room (with Randy, our contractor):

Looks heavy, boys!

Yes, I cringed a bit while they were cutting the opening for the cooktop. He did it without any noticeable finger protection, eye protection, or ear coverings. I’m not their mother, so I didn’t say anything.

Last but not least, a glass of wine to celebrate:

Today is plumbing day. The sinks will be functional after today, and if all goes as planned, we’ll have a dishwasher. Then all that will be left will be the tile backsplash and a few finishing details, and the glass doors on those cabinets in the dining room.

Just for a little comparison, here are some photos of what the kitchen used to look like.

Bye bye, ugly grey plastic!

Peacock in Progress

I’m finally to that point in this shawl where it’s getting exciting again. You know how it is. You start a big lace project, you’re all enthusiastic about it, and you can’t put it down. Then it gets to that point. All you lace knitters know it. The shawl gets big enough that it just looks like a blob on the needles, and the rows keep getting interminably longer and longer. It seems like you’ll never get to that last chart.

Well here I am. At the last chart.

I have 22 rows to go. The rows currently have around 450 stitches, and are getting longer and longer and longer. Now that I’m seeing the end, though, it’s getting fun to knit this again.

Here’s how much yarn I have left of the first hank.

I’m pretty sure it won’t make it through the last row. Fortunately I bought a second hank of this. I won’t have to use much of it, but this is one of those shawl patterns that is a little hard to adjust by adding or subtracting rows.

Our other big project is the kitchen remodel. We now have cabinets and sinks, and the granite counters will be installed today. The rest of the finishing work should be done by next week.

We’re also remodeling the “powder” room off the dining room, since the cabinets and counters were the same as in the old kitchen.

Now we just need to decide what will be the first thing we cook in the new kitchen!

Saturday Sky

Here, for Sandy, are my Saturday Sky photos. One is of the lake and part of our resident population of ducks. We have had two separate hatches of baby ducks this year, one earlier in the spring, and one just a week and a half ago. Their mommas apparently don’t want their babies’ photos splashed all over the tabloids, however, as they swim for it every time they see me with the camera. So all you get is a small part of the duck Armada that’s hanging around this morning. We also have a flock of Canada geese that were out on the lawn yesterday with six baby goslings. I haven’t been able to get them on camera, either.

My other Saturday Sky photo is of the sky behind my house. I realized this morning while out with the camera that I haven’t shown a construction progress photo in awhile.

Most of the construction is completed, and the stucco work is done, waiting for the painters in the next week. We are getting rid of the stark white look, and painting the house a soft pale sage-moss green. There’s moss growing on everything here anyway, so we figured why fight it. The new rails are up on the deck, though the glass is not installed in them yet, and the rails on that top circular deck are off getting powder-coated. The dry wall repair inside the house is finished, and the painters will repaint inside where they had to tear things up to get those kitchen windows out to repair the wood around them. So it’s mostly back to a livable state. At least I can see outside. I’m glad they were able to get the tarp off the house and the plastic off the windows before it got really warm here. It’s nice having some ventilation in the house.
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Thanks for all the support and words of encouragement on my last post. I did get to WW, and signed up. My plan is to update the ticker bar weekly when I check in at WW. I’ve also been exercising daily, not an easy feat for me.My biggest challenge is during my 7-day work weeks. The weeks off are not hard, but when I put in a 90-hours-plus week of work that requires that I get up at 5:30, and many nights don’t get home till 10:30 or 11PM, it’s hard to fit in exercise. I found a really fun motivational tool online. It’s a virtual TransAmerican trek, from Yorktown, VA, to Florence, OR. Whenever you walk, run, or bicycle, you enter the distance that you covered, and it keeps track of where you would be if you were actually on the trail. It has photos of the scenery along the trail so you can “see” what you would be seeing if you were really walking there. So far I’m 4.7 miles along the trail. Anybody want to walk with me? I’m still not far from the right coast, so you wouldn’t be far behind. I’m not far enough into this to set a goal date for getting to the left coast, but I will get there eventually.

Now if I could only stop at yarn shops along the way. Hmmm. Maybe I could shop “virtually” at shops that I would see if I were really on the trail. Anybody from Virginia out there? Any good yarn shops on that stretch of the road?

Langsjal Johonnu

Or, I Can Stop Anytime I Want

Here’s where I am in the Amazing Lace shawl. I’ve finished the first border, and have gotten to the second border. Once I finish that, I can start on the center section, all eighty thousand repeats of it, and really get to the fun part. Here’s a photo:

This is just so addicting. I even get up early to get in a row or two before I go to work. Those of you in my family know that this is serious knitting addiction we’re talking about. I am so not a morning person, and there is little that will get me out of bed earlier than I absolutely have to. I’ve given up reading, as I can’t knit and read at the same time. The TV choices have been pared down to mindless drivel that I can knit to without paying attention. I’ve considered buying a lottery ticket, so I can win big, retire from my job, and knit Icelandic lace forever. The lace and I have seriously bonded. My next post hopefully will have my second entry for the Amazing Lace challenge.

By the way, I am not sure whether or not I should be proud of the fact that if you enter “nupps” into Google, mine is the first site that comes up. That is truly weird. Try it, if you don’t believe me.

The house project is coming along. The stucco guys are here working on things, and it’s looking a little more promising. Yes, I’m still under the circus tent. Oh well, soon enough, they tell me. Here are my new ground-level closets that we gained in the course of the project. There is one of these on each end of the house.

And this next one just makes me laugh. For a while there, my house resembled a Holstein cow.

I’m off to knit. I’m starting to dream in Icelandic.

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Annie of Knitty Gritty asked us all to let you know that she is taking a blog break. She had a last post composed but her bloghost shut her down a little more expeditiously than she expected. If you are a reader, she wanted to let everybody know that she is taking the summer off, and may be back later in the year in a group blog.

Nupps, Again

I’m not done with those nupps yet. I did get half of them done, however. Here’s where I am on the Estonian Garden Wrap:

The first border and edging is done, and I have the provisional cast on stitches back on the needles, and am half done with the first repeat of the nupps section. I’ve never knit from a provisional cast on before, so that was a little anxiety-provoking. If you’ve never done this, you cast on with waste yarn (there are a variety of ways to do this so it comes undone easily when you’re ready). When you get to that part, you simply unzip the waste yarn, placing the live stitches on the needle, then you’re off knitting in the other direction. Very cool. Eunny has a whole post about cast on methods for lace here. Here is another site, showing the method I used. Here are a few pictures of the unzipping part.

And the finished stitches, back on the needle.

This was a load of fun, really. I guess I am easily entertained. I kept calling John out to the patio to watch. He was polite enough to pretend like this was a major feat of knitting engineering.

I did put this aside for awhile over the weekend to do a little more on the Orange Pippa sweater. I got enough done on the sleeve to determine that the gauge is correct. Here it is:

What do you think? Are the yarn and the pattern a match made in heaven? Or not?

Last but not least, more house pictures. The circus tent came up yesterday, and is rolled up on the roof for now, so we went out last evening and got a few photos.

Deck 1:

Deck 2:

There is still a lot of work left to do, but it’s looking less depressing by the day. And it’s nice to be able to see the lake again. I was getting a bit claustrophobic in here. Also, we have new arrivals on the lake, who were out for a brief evening swim last night for the first time with their parents. If I can catch them on camera (they are all very shy), I’ll post pictures later this week.

Nupps, Take Two

Here are the Nupps:

And a close up. Click on the photo to get a better view.

The arrows point to the little troublemakers. For those of you who don’t know what “nupps” are, they are evil little bobble-like creatures, in this case intended to look like lily of the valley buds. You make them by doing a K1-yo-K1-ko-K1, all in the same stitch, thereby increasing 5 stitches in one. On the next row, you purl those 5 stitches together to make the nupp. Or you can cheat, and do K1-yo-K1, followed by purl 3 together on the flip side. Kate (no blog) had a good suggestion in the comments from my last post. She recommended pushing the stitches down to the cable part of the circular needle, then purling them together. That works pretty well. So does getting them all bunched up on the very tip of the needles, but they tend to do the lemming thing and jump off the edge, so I abandoned that approach.

Once the nupps and I had a little “come to Jesus” meeting, we are getting along fine. Though I would recommend very sharp pointed needles. And a good vocabulary of swear words.

I pinned this out slightly so you could see what the lace looks like. I really have fallen in love with the Zephyr yarn. It’s a wool-silk blend, and comes in lots of lovely colors. I have one more repeat of the nupps section, then the final edging, then the same thing on the other end of the scarf, then it’s done.

The “unbuilding” phase is mostly done, and the rebuilding has started in earnest. We are going to have two huge decks on the lake side of the house when this is all done. Now I only hope it’s done in time to enjoy at least a little of the summer out there. Here’s one photo. It’s hard to get a good idea of what the decks will look like, as we’re still under the “big top”. The kitchen windows still need to come out so they can rebuild around them, but I think they are saving that for when it’s hopefully a bit warmer so we don’t freeze to death. Actually I think they are saving that for when the decks are framed in so it’s easier to get to the windows.

Have a good weekend, and a nice Mother’s Day for all you mothers!

Project Roundup

I haven’t posted pictures of everything on the needles for awhile, so here goes. A couple of these are old, a couple are even older, and a couple are new-to-the-blog.

That’s the Estonian Garden Scarf, which I really need to get working on, as it will be a gift. I’m a little over halfway done with the center lace section, which is way more mindless than it looks.

This is a Euroflax linen “warshcloth”. I started this a long time ago, from a pattern in Knitters’ Stash, but got inspired to pull it out by Kay and Ann’s book. I’m a little over half done with that one, too.

That’s the Eggplant Sweater, from Jo Sharp DK Wool. This one has been sitting in time out, as it’s gotten to the stage where it’s too bulky to drag around everywhere. I’m also sick of knitting wool when it’s been turning into spring outside, so this one may sit in the basket for a few months. I will finish it later this year, I’m just not terribly inspired by it right at the moment.

Here’s the sock pair, back from its trip to the Big Apple:

And here’s the current siren song:

That’s the yarn I bought from Elann last week while I was on my “free” yarn day spree. I had a little trouble deciding which color to get, and finally asked myself WWCD? (What Would Claudia Do?) Of course I bought the orange. (Coppered Sienna, which sounds much more elegant than orange.)

I am a bit perturbed by this yarn. It’s listed on the label as knitting to a DK weight, at 22st/4in. When I swatched it at that gauge, it is floppy and a bit see-through for my taste. When I went down in needle size to get a fabric I liked, the gauge was more like 28st/4 inches. I had contemplated making the Marla sweater out of Hot Knits, by Melissa Leapman, but the gauge wouldn’t work. (That lovely example of the sweater was knit by Laurie, from Etherknitter.) After dithering around for awhile, discarding several possibilities, I’ve almost decided on Pippa, a beautiful cardigan pattern by the very talented Anna. I’m still in the undecided stage, but once I finish the cuff on the sleeve and get to the main pattern stitch, I should be able to tell if it will look ok in this yarn or not. If not, it will be back to the drawing board. Here’s the first inch of the cuff.

Not quite as classic as the navy Baby Cashmerino called for in the pattern, but we’ll see. I couldn’t see springing $90 or so for yarn right now when my house is falling apart.

Speaking of which, here are a couple of photos of the house.

That one shows the horizontal beam being deconstructed. The next photo shows it being hauled off, and the last one shows it gone.

The three arrows in that picture (the top one is hard to see) show the other beams that are being taken out. We’ve decided that we are only going to have the vertical beams replaced up to the level of the decks, not all the way to the top. It would be prohibitively more expensive to get the heavy equipment back there to rebuild it the way it was. So it will be a very different looking house when done. The side benefit is that it will open up our north-facing house to a lot more light, not an inconsequential thing in the Pacific Northwest.

No Knitting

I have no knitting to report. The house is a bustle of activity, and I haven’t picked up the needles in two days. We’ve mostly gotten moved back into the kitchen, and I’ve been cleaning the cabinets and everything in them to get rid of the construction dust. The wood floors are done, though the heat duct covers aren’t on yet, and the painting is done. We can’t put the oriental rugs on the floors for a couple of weeks, so we’ve decided to just leave the furniture in the garage for now rather than move it twice.

We built a new fireplace front with this phase of the remodeling. The old one was just a blank hole in the wall, with a concrete slab stuck in the wall as a suspended hearth. Our construction guys built a box for a real hearth, which we had covered with the same tile that we used in the entrance. Then we had a mantle piece fabricated, which was installed yesterday. Here are the photos:

Here are our new pantry shelves:

This room used to be just a junk room, but we had shelving made for storage, and there will be a long desktop on the wall with the window. On the opposite wall is a bookshelf just for cookbooks.

One of the main motivators for this whole project was this:

This is a refrigerated wine storage unit that we have had for several years. The previous configuration of our main living area was kitchen with eating area, family room/den, and a combined living and dining room (the room with the fireplace). We were very cramped in the previous dining area, and don’t really need two living room areas. So the dining room is being moved to the old family room, and the other room will be one large living room. We didn’t want the wine unit to take up half the dining room, so we had this built:

Yesterday the wine unit got moved back in, and we started loading it up.

I think we’ve found most of the wine boxes in the garage, though who knows with that mess out there. We of course had to sample some last night to make sure none of it had gone bad from the lousy storage conditions.

Today the new entrance light fixtures are being installed. I’m off to clean more cabinets.

Chaos, Part 2

Unfortunately, I think there might be more than 2 parts to this home-remodeling chaos. The floors are sanded, stained, and have the first finish coat on them. The painters got them covered up with paper before I could get a good shot. Tuesday the painting guys showed up, and we are finally getting an idea what this will look like when it’s all done. Here are some photos:

Our bedroom, wrapped in plastic.

Everything in the house was previously painted a stark white. When we get done with it, the trim and ceilings will be a creamy white, with a yellow shade for the walls, and a light sage color for our bedroom.

The new bathroom door that the guys rigged up:

Riley loves this project. There is somebody new at the house every day. She thinks they are all here just to see her.

Lucy the Cowardly doesn’t think much of the whole project. Being the big chicken that she is, she has discovered this spot in the TV/cable box cabinet to hide out.

Here are our new French doors out to our patio, with the first coat of yellow on the walls:

And a shot from our kitchen which shows just a little of how different this place is going to look when we’re done with it:

The really bad part about remodeling is the “oops, I made a clean spot” phenomenon. This really started as a wood floor project, then morphed into knocking out walls and replacing tile, painting, and new doors. Yesterday we decided that all the carpet in the upstairs master bedroom level is going to look like crap next to the new tile and paint, so it’s going as well. I don’t want to pack up all that junk upstairs into boxes twice. It’s all jammed into the garage now, so we might as well go for it. We picked out the floor carpet yesterday in about five minutes. I think I have reached that “I can’t make any more decisions right now” point.

On the knitting front, I have gotten a bit more done on Birch, in between micro-managing the home project. I’m hoping to have it done by the weekend. Blocking might have to wait a bit until the mess around here is under some control, though.

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We received some very sad news over the weekend. If you’ve been visiting here regularly, you’ve met Daisie, our neighbors’ Corgi. She and Riley were best friends, since my husband would pick her up on the way to the park almost every day over the last year. Daisie was hit by a car on Sunday, and died instantly of her injuries. She was just the sweetest dog I’ve ever met, and we’ll all miss her greatly.

Chaos

That would be my house at the moment. The remodeling is proceeding, though messily and slowly. The front entrance tile is almost in, and the grouting and finishing will hopefully be done in a few days. The boys are here to sand the wood floors this morning, and we are plastic-sheeted into a corner of our house. After the floors get finished, the other boys will come and paint the whole upstairs. I will almost be glad to go back to work tomorrow so I can pretend this just doesn’t exist for awhile.

Here are a few pictures. Where our living room used to be is now a dance hall. We tried it out the other night after a few bourbons, and I think we’ll turn it back into a living room. Note the classy furniture.

Here’s the front tile.

My yarn is locked up behind several layers of plastic, doors, and boxes, hopefully to keep the sawdust out.

When life is in chaos, I shop. It seems that there is an epidemic of yarn-buying around the blogs this week, so I joined the crowd. I couldn’t resist buying enough Cotton Ease for two sweaters of some sort. I ordered it from the Lion Brand website, and it hasn’t arrived yet to take pictures, but I got the Banana Cream and the Candy Blue colors. Sitcom Chic, here I come!

Elann has Pakucho Organic Cotton on sale, and I bought enough in Forest to make this cardigan:

I’ve had the pattern for awhile, but didn’t get around to getting the yarn until now.

Last but not least, Alpaca & Silk, from Blue Sky Alpacas, purchased from Knit Pixie. I want one of everything they have for sale! This will be a lacy scarf someday when it grows up. It is indeed as pretty as it looks.

Lest you think that all I do is shop for yarn and dream about new projects, here are photos of actual knitting. The three projects are the Rogue sweater, the ~~Black Hole~~ Birch shawl, and the Lorna’s Laces socks.

I’m going to go find someplace quieter than home to knit today….say, perhaps by the runway at SeaTac.