Service call

So I'm sitting here waiting for a repair guy for the Blue Star range. It's only been seven weeks since the grill exploded...they sure aren't in any hurry here. Ahem.

I'm feeling a little cranky in part because of one of those frustrating facts of life. Any time a repair or service person gives you a window of time ("I'll be there between 3 and 5 pm"), they're going to arrive at the very, very, very end of it.

Unless, of course, you're not there on time and then the repair guy'll arrive at the very first second of the time window and be gone by the time you come panting up to the house three minutes late.

Keep reading...

Since I wasn't late today, that means that I've just spent the afternoon sitting at home waiting for the Blue Star service guy, who's still not here. He's got twenty-four more minutes before the window expires. And then another 15 because I'm sometimes late, too (yeah, I know, Steve, I know. Pot, kettle, etc...I got it.). And then I'll be ticked off. And still grill-less.

UPDATE 5:57 PM
Well, he didn't show up at all. I left him a voice-mail back at 5 pm and hopefully he'll have a good reason for standing me up. Maybe he had a flat tire on a wilderness road and a mountain lion ate his cell phone before he could call me to say he's running late. Something reasonable like that.

So much for grilling something when J's cousins come by tomorrow. Oh well.

UPDATE 6:20 PM
The service guy finally called...he's feeling sick and couldn't make it. No mention of how his cell phone is feeling. I sympathize, but only up to a point. He coulda called. Guess we'll reschedule when he's better. Unless Signature Marketing, the Blue Star distributor we're working with, can come up with a service guy who'll actually, you know, show up and do the service.

UPDATE ONE WEEK LATER
The repair guy showed up when he promised and fixed the stove. Nice guy, too. More on this in the comments, if you're interested.
 

Completion, explosion, coughing, and vamping

Apparently, I don't post often enough. So, quick update time:

1. The kitchen is done, pretty much. We have one additional shelf to install inside a cabinet, but that's about a half-hour of work for J. next weekend. No big deal, he says. Here's how it looks now:
2. The brand new Blue Star stove exploded. During a dinner party, even. We're the most gracious hosts...we made the guests bring the main dish and then we blew it up.*

3. The Bunster has a slight cold. Enough to stay home from school yesterday and today, but just barely. So he's going stir-crazy in the house and we're both getting royally sick of playing Chutes-and-Ladders. It helps that he likes to play it backwards once someone wins (counting down from 100 to 1, so chutes are now good and ladders are bad news), but not by much. Does anyone make a strategy-based game for preschoolers? I'd pay good money for one. Probably willing to fork over way too much good money, if you catch me on a day like today.

4. I have no actual subject to blog about today, except maybe the kitchen. I'm just vamping desperately so I can post anyway. Can you tell?

5. Hey, here's a Meez!



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* Okay, actually, only the grill exploded, the rest of the stove still works great. And it's under warranty, of course, since it was just installed in December. And we finished the meat under the broiler (appropriate, since it was London broil). But the story is better without those pesky details. Can't grill with it looking like this:

Nice hole in the gas line, hunh? At least no one was hurt.

We just got the replacement parts from Prizer-Painter (who make the Blue Star range) and are waiting for a repair to be scheduled. Since simply getting the parts into the mail took 'em three weeks, we're just hoping to be grilling again before the weather gets too warm to do it indoors.

If you can't stand the heat....

You can tell it's late at night when I'm trying to come up with funny kitchen puns and this is all that comes to mind.

And you can tell it's way past my bedtime when I decide to just use it even though it's lame.

So here's the latest update on our kitchen. As you can see, we have a floor now, plus a granite countertop and a nice tile backspash. The sinks are installed and we're no longer washing dishes in the bathroom (which, while practical, was not fun).

Still to come: cabinet handles, installing the dishwasher and stove hood, bringing in and hooking up the stove and fridge, etc. Still, pretty amazing that we're so far along in only two months and three weeks!

By the way, sorry about the weird spots in the photo. We don't actually have poltergiests. If you know any good ways to clean a pocket digital camera's lens, let me know.

Plumb fine cabinet

A few days ago, J opened a drawer in one of our new cabinets and discovered some unusual plumbing. We were about to have cold running water inside a pot drawer. Handy for washing them, I guess, but kind of messy.

Apparently, the plumber forgot to raise the pipe above cabinet level, and the cabinet installers just worked around it.

It's fixed now, although the drawer and cabinet back will keep the little round hole as a permanent momento.

The kitchen and family room are now painted green. It was a somewhat hasty decision, so I hope we'll continue to like the color. If not, at least paint is the easiest thing to change.

More kitchen

More kitchen progress:




Next up are windows and a countertop. The plywood is nice, but maybe something a little more solid would be good.
 

Guess what this is...

Hey, which room in our house is this?

Here's an earlier view:

And this is what it looked like a month ago:

We're more or less halfway through a kitchen remodel. I'm using it as my excuse for not blogging more often lately (although if you've visited before you already know that's not exactly accurate). We've been living in about half our house, cooking on a hot plate and fighting the good fight against construction dust for a month now.

If all goes well, we'll have cabinets in within a couple of days. I'll post a few more photos once they're in place. For now, one final image: