Hardware Man...

What does this picture have to do with my post? Nothing. But I do like pickups, and I wanted to give a progress report on the kitchen, and I don't like to post without a picture. So...you get the high privelege to see here a picture of the latest addition to my husband's collection of hardware related collector's edition trucks. (He works for a man that owns a bunch of DO-It Best Hardware stores). Someday I'll show you the rest of the cute lil' buggers.

I would just love to have a REAL pickup that is this old, can you imagine the picnics from the tailgate or the fun we could have going to garage sales in a sweet ride like this one? So cute, the little side racks made of wood, remember those? Those were to allow a load a little deeper without the stuff falling out all over the road. I like pickups. Oh, I said that already.

Sometime I'll have to tell the story about a pickup truck (very similar to this one) landing on top of the middle of my dad. Accidentally of course. He took a hard corner with a heavy load, and at the same time, his driver's door flew open, out he went, and the truck came over on top of him. His noggin landed on a broken beer bottle and cut him from the outside of the jugular vein all the way around to the back of the opposite ear. Ewww....plus it squished a lot of the insides of him. Things ruptured and his pelvis was crushed, but he was back to his old self in a few months bein' ornery full-time again.

I'm even old enough to remember when riding in the back of a pickup wasn't illegal and the fun we had when we could ride on the edge of the tailgate when it was open, that was mainly done around our property at home. There were forty acres and about half of it was wooded. We had tractors and usually a spare pickup truck to use in our chores we did. Sometimes the chores included cutting and hauling firewood. That is still one of the things I remember as one of the most pleasant of tasks we were assigned. (Running the sewer tape was one of the least favorite. LONG STORY.)

Something about cutting wood was just so pleasant, even though it was hard work. I never had the privelege of running the chain saw, which was probably a good thing. But I did have the privelege of the smell of the freshly fallen wood chips, the crunch of the leaves underfoot, the fun of throwing the wood in the bed of the pickup....then unloading and stacking it all when we got back to the yard. And the hope of a cup of hot chocolate when we got back into the house!

We didn't know how dangerous riding in the open beds of pickup trucks was then! There were a lot of things that we did then that were stupid. Like when my brother would take us back to the woods on the trails in the pickup and us girls would lay down in the bed of the pickup and he would floor it over the big holes in the trail and we'd see how far in the air we could bounce! DUMB! I know! But man--would we laugh, and so would he! That's not all of our dumb adventures but I should save my stories for another time....all that talk and I haven't given you a "what we did today on the kitchen" report yet! (I think I shall start a new category: "dumb adventures".)

Hubby did electrical ALL DAY. Someone sound a trumpet! I have more than TWO electrical plugs in my kitchen!!!!!! Unreal. And he worked it out so that I won't trip a breaker when I run the toaster AND the electric fry pan at the same time. I won't know how to act! He rewired everything else. It's so nice to not have to wait for an electrician. I will kiss him extra well tonight.

I, on the other hand, ran all day to different home improvement stores checking things like faucets, light fixtures (we need three different kinds that all are similar...a pretty tall order!) and ceiling tiles...(we will NOT be getting stamped tin ceiling tiles! Those things are OUTRAGEOUS!).

Needless to say, I did a lot of looking but not a lot of buying. I did find a Restoration Hardware outlet in a mall nearby and may end up buying light fixtures from there. The bad thing about that store is that NONE of the light fixtures are out on display and that makes it hard to buy when you can't actually SEE the light lit, or how it's put together.

Not to bore you with all the details, but old houses are decidedly hard to deal with when you try to update them. There are so many odd circumstances to work around. Let's just hope it all looks decent in the end. GAH! Ornery old house!

Tonight, we went and bought a bunch of drywall, and that starts tomorrow. Once that's up, and finished, then I imagine we can hire the guy to do what's called "knock down" which is a dumb name for a process by which a spray on finish is added to the existing ceiling--with a texture that looks like plaster--to make it look decent again.

We can perhaps get the cupboards set by the time the weekend comes. I am thankful for things going smoothly so far (knock on wood!). He goes back to work Monday, so we have just under a week left to get as much done as we can. Then after that it's evenings and days off and the progress will slow considerably.

Hubby works with a man who does counter tops on the side and I have to call and get him out here to measure and show the materials he can use.

I hope to have more good reports in the coming days, but until then...
DON'T BE RIDIN' IN THE OPEN BEDS OF PICKUPS OR LETTIN' ONE ROLL OVER ON YOU!!

I'll be 'round to visit you again soon....sometime next week, perhaps, I'll be able to catch up again! I miss all of your stories and adventures!
XOXO
Joni