Incident free…. Almost

All in all, day one went well, though not without some….. excitement. Demolition, as it turns out, doesn’t have to take a long time. By 11 am, most of the heavy work was done. Ripping that god awful Formica off the walls was delightful.

We threw all the cabinet and countertop pieces off the back of the deck into the bed of the GIGANTIC DIESEL truck that I rented. I could swim laps in the bed of thing.

While I’ve known that the builders took every short cut they could when they built this place, I learned today what that really meant.
- No sheetrock on one of the walls behind the cabinets.
- Random live wires hidden behind or on top of cabinets
- A plug installed into the outside of a cabinet…. The outside that was flush against a wall.
- 3 power lines into one circuit box that took my Dad at least an hour to decipher, and caused the second incident of near electrocution.

There was much puzzlement and cursing over the specific choices that were made in building this kitchen. Arguably, there were several options that were “the stupidest (bleep)ing thing” my dad had ever seen.

By 2 pm, we had pulled off all the sheetrock (and by we, I mostly mean my dad and Kent). Dad and I headed to the dump, and afterwards sat in terrible traffic bringing back the truck.

Delighted to be rid of the truck, I got into my car and rolled into a parked truck behind me. Neither car was damaged, though I knocked off the license plate holder. Woops. I hope the handwritten note I left on the windshield expresses my sincerest apologies.

The afternoon was spent puzzling over the mysterious wiring in the kitchen. After several circuit tests, and half a dozen theories, and re-labeling of circuit breakers, Dad determined a plan for tomorrow’s work.

This was followed by showers, dinner and cocktails. Theoretically, today was the hardest day. However, it went fairly smoothly, so I expect we still have some hard work ahead of us

Now, I am off to take some Advil to pre-emptively convince my back and shoulders that they aren’t sore from all the lugging and throwing.

Today’s Stats
Times “fuck” uttered: ~20
Times “fuck” uttered in close session with many other curse words: 0
Close calls with electrocution: 2
Parked cars backed into: 1
Person we want to meet: the electrician who wired this house
Notable injuries: 0

See the pics on Flickr