This is exciting stuff, my friends. This is what you come to my blog for, right?
Stage 1 of this kitchen remodel is to empty the kitchen and set up a temporary kitchen somewhere else in the house. Our temporary kitchen is going to be our laundry room. We are planning to replace the sink and faucet and add a countertop over the washer and dryer to make the space more usable. There is plenty of storage in the laundry room, but much of it was filled with old things that belonged to my Grandparents. Cleaning it out was a job I was putting off.
After cleaning out the cupboards I was left with 2 trash bags, one donation box, 3 vacuum cleaners and parts, a bunch of old fabric (some of which I donated, and some of which I kept for my girls to be creative with—more on that it a minute). And this:
Piles of old household cleaners and chemicals. I kept a few usable things, but lets face it. I just don't need 15 bottles of various types of wood polish, 3 bottles of oven cleaner (mine is self clean), 5 different kinds of laundry soap (none of which are for high-efficiency washers), sketchy unlabeled cleaner bottles, etc. What I really need is room in my cupboards.
I set about trying to find out how to dispose of this. I got the major runaround and called about 8 people. The 5th or 6th person in Great Falls directed me to call a neighboring city even, and finally someone in Helena told me they would take it, but it would have to be solidified first. So, I have to dump every. single. bottle. out into kitty litter, double bag it all, and haul it to Helena. Or box it up and stuff it in a old barn somewhere and forget about it. Ha.
Have any of you dealt with this challenge before? I have 2 boxes from the laundry room, one box from the garage, and another cupboard to clean out still. And who knows what is lurking in the shop. They don't make this easy.
(On a happier note, we found a few fun things in my Grandma's old fabric drawer—some old retro-looking double knit fabrics, already cut into squares for a quilt, and another quilt front made out of old men's suiting. The suit quilt had no backing (it actually looks like the backing was removed and the front was just dry-cleaned, maybe with the intent of adding a new backing). The suit squares also had a few holes in them (moth-eaten?) but could be easily patched with no backing on the quilt.
I would love to know the story behind this quilt. Was it made of my Grandpa's old suits? In any case, I may need to take up quilting and finish it. It would make an adorable quilt for a boy's room. (So in other words, since there are no little boys in this house I'll have to find a another recipient to appreciate it :)