End of the Week and a Cold Snap

So, that little hyphen in front of the 28 on the thermometer is a minus sign. 28 degrees below zero, which in the language I understand, is -33, according to Mr. Google. Mark tells me it was -35 Fahrenheit when he got up a good three hours before I did (which temperature is almost the same in Celsius). -28 was the temperature I saw when I finally checked.

I didn’t know it was this temperature when I slipped on the flip-flops I have sitting by the back door and ran out in my pajamas, not bothering with a jacket, to put out the full bag of garbage. Yeah, it was cold, but it was so pretty out, I had to run back in for my phone to get a few snaps. But to get any good shots, I had to go for a little walk, and I was still too lazy to put on a jacket or shoes. If the neighbors looked out and saw me, they must have thought I was an escapee from somewhere.

By the time, I got back inside, I’d realized it was cold out. But it was still a beautiful day with the hoar frost lacing every branch. I took these from our front yard.

SO grateful for a nice warm house with a working furnace and no power outages. Our next-door neighbors were not so lucky. First, their furnace went out, and then their water pipes froze and burst. Mark and our tenant in the basement were able to help them get their heat back on, figuring out the problem so that our downstairs tenant could clean out the blocked chimney. Not much they could do about the burst pipe, other than get the shut-off, well, shut off. Makes me appreciate our functional, beautiful (and getting more beautiful by the day), nearly-100-year-old home.

And, as promised, I will deliver on our house-updates progress this week. The upshot is that we have cabinet doors back on all the cabinets as of today. The dark oak-look went to various shades of greyscale in both bathrooms and the kitchen. Mark and I are loving the changes. The kitchen needs new flooring and some minor finishing touches, and then we’ll call it a wrap. Here it is…

We’re loving the grey cabinets and white/grey/black tiles with the peach walls (as usual, true colours not showing up on camera). It gives the kitchen the updated retro look we’re going for with our elderly home.

The crowning touch (literally) that came to Mark as a last- minute inspiration really completes the look: the cove moulding he added to the tops. Here’s the man himself, hard at work.

And here, again, putting the hinges back on the doors today.

My job was holding the doors in place while he zapped them back on. But first, I had to deal with this mess, seeing I was the one who took the doors off to begin with.

(Oh yeah, the spice rack was another last-minute inspiration of his. Here he is, installing it, yes, in pajamas. Bit of a theme here…)

I got the various screws all sorted, and then we figured out what went where and eventually had grey cabinets in the kitchen, white cabinets in one bathroom, and black in the other, all with their respective correct doors, hinges, and screws.

This next bathroom needs the most work but is going to be the most design fun for me because of it. I’m loving the black touches, even in its very transitional state.

And here it is, all put back together. Long way to go, but I think it’s much improved already, just with some cabinet paint and the trim painted black.

Next week, I’m hoping to have all the bathroom walls painted. Talk to you by next week’s end for the progress report.

Stay warm, everyone! May your furnaces/heaters/wood burners keep on pumping out the heat and your pipes stay unfrozen.