When the hubs and I went out for a rare trip to the cinema to see Avatar, we caught the trailer for Despicable me:

It wasn’t til just recently that I noticed we have a despicable dawg under our own roof.  Can you see the similarities?

The likeness extends beyond the silhouette.  Our puppy Reebs has taken to leaving us “presents” around the house.  Understandable perhaps when we are gone from the house and the dogs are kept inside.  Not so much when we are both here and she has free access to the yard.

Solution?  Install a doggy door.  With the exception of the property we rented when we first moved to NC, we’ve had dog doors in all our houses, and so all the dogs have experience using them.  Everyone except Arriba.

This time round, Rick wanted to install the dog door in the exterior wall, rather than the back door. In the past, we’ve had issues with the dog door being fully waterproof because it tends to sit unevenly in the door paneling. 

The dog door was surprisingly easy to install.  Cut out hole in interior and exterior wall using the template provided.  Laugh at dogs pondering the new hole:

Try to stop chihuahua from using dog door without steps:

Next, screw the exterior side of the dog door into the studs. 

Although it was not in the instructions provided with the dog door, we went ahead and installed an additional wooden threshold under the door frame – this was to provide extra support for the dawgs as they come through the door.  The last step was to screw in the door from the inside and caulk around the frame outside.

 And voila!, one dog door installed…

It was quite gratifying to see the dogs use the door for the first time.  It’s amazing that they didn’t forget how to use it after three years without a dog door.  Ok, it’s not rocket science, but the little things get us excited round here.

We’re planning on eventually replacing those old deck steps, but for now they do their job well enough.  Reebs has taken a little time to get used to the door.  But with sufficient coaxing (i.e. treats) she has started using it really well!  No more despicable Reebs.

We are lucky to have a large kitchen. It is big enough that we don’t need to use all the cabinets for kitchen related stuff.  We actually use the whole set of cabinets on the right side to house tools, paint, wire and every other conceivable item needed during a house renovation. Plates and cups out.  Putty and caulk in.

On the day we moved in, the kitchen was clean and tidy – completely free of renovation mess…

Not so much after a year of renovation.

Both the island and countertops are cluttered with power tools, paint and plugs…

Although the countertop is not a pretty sight, there’s worse to be found in the cabinets and drawers.  This is the result of trying to quickly tidy away the countertops to make things seem tidy when we have guests around.  Out of sight, out of mind. You’ll notice that the bottom shelf of the cabinets is more densely packed with renovation goodies than the upper shelves – that’s because at 5 ft 1″, I cannot reach beyond the second shelf.  Cue sound effect – wop wop.

It was high time that we did something about this mess.  Apart from the visual clutter, the tools lacked organization.  I’d lost count of the numerous times we’d tried to find a tape measure, a flat head screwdriver or the box of sheetrock screws – tools we *knew* we had. Somewhere. Frust-rat-ing.

So we had to make mess to tidy mess. Everything came out of the cabinets and drawers and were organized into related piles. 

Who knew we had three tubes of liquid nails, 10 rolls of electrical tape and 15 replacement blades for the box knife?   Not only did we find the elusive tape measure, we found four.  Flat head screwdriver?  No problem, we have multiple in various sizes. Sand paper in every conceivable grit size. It was like going shopping, but for free!

 Each drawer or cabinet was designated a theme, so we now know where to go to find stuff.  We have a caulk drawer…

and a drawer that houses painting and tile related accessories…

The paint now lives in the cabinet below – it is great to know exactly where all our sprays and paints samples are, along with the roller brushes and trays.

We even have a drawer for screws. That tupperware container on the left has all the odd assortments of screws, nuts, bolts and washers we came across.  Now if we need one or two specific size screws, we can look here first without having to go buy a pack of 1000 at the DIY store.

The upper cabinets look so much better. A place for everything – everything in its place.  I’m hoping that this will make the renovation madness around here much more efficient.

So, our kitchen is back to its clean and tidy state.  For now.

We’ve put together a tool bag of the items which are used most frequently – tape measure, screw drivers, level, extension cord, hammer, chisels, box knife, stud finder, and so on.  This portable tool chest can be carried around the house and be used for whatever project we’re working on that day. 

Hopefully, that’ll mean that we’ll be less likely to leave tools lying around the house, so we won’t be in the situation of not being able to find four tape measures.  Yeah. A girl can hope, right?  What tips or tricks do you use in your house to keep your tools organized?  Do you store your tools in the house like we do, or are they relegated to the garage?  Ughh, the garage – now there’s another organization project on our to-do list…

Just in case we didn’t already have enough projects on the go, over the weekend we decided to add one more.  We wanted to move our smelly, unsightly trash can (aka  a “rubbish bin” in the UK) from beside our kitchen cabinets.  In this location, it could be seen right as you walk in from the front of the house – classy – and just recently, the dogs have been using it as a place to hike their leg when we leave them in the kitchen when we go out. So we needed to hide the sucker, pronto!

The cabinets right next to where we usually keep the trash can were perfect contenders for its new hidey hole.

We bought a couple of sliding shelves which fit neatly into the cabinet to conceal the waste containers.

These systems are so easy to install.  They come preassembled – fours screws and five minutes later, you’re all done. We liked the end outcome so much that we went ahead and got a couple more for the opposite cabinet to house our recycling.

This cabinet was wider so we were able to get the double mounted sliding shelf (you need a 14.5″ opening for this system, as opposed to 10″ for the single shelf).

We bought the optional door mounting kit, so you just pull out the door and the shelf slides right out, instead of having to open the door then pull out the trash can.  In this picture, you can see the large bracket that affixes the shelf to the cabinet door.

A quick and easy update to the kitchen, don’t you agree? Anyone else out there use these concealed trash cans?

There is a reason why I am not an optimistic person. Usually, as soon as I start looking on the positive side of life, fate steps in to bring me back to the darker side.  Following my last peppy post, this is exactly what happened. I should have known better than to bask in the glory of the projects we have completed around the house since moving in 6 months ago.  There I was, gleefully claiming that we haven’t had many projects to blog about just recently.  Well, not any more.

Friday afternoon, I noticed that there was a puddle of water on our breakfast table.  I was puzzled by this, but not especially alarmed.  When Rick got home later that evening, I showed him said puddle, which had grown considerably in size. We deduced that the water was dripping down from the kitchen light fixture. We ran upstairs  to the spare bedroom above the kitchen and found this:

A section of the flooring was absolutely soaked through  – this was what was seeping into the kitchen downstairs.  The bedding and mattress were also soaked.  There was significant water damage on the bedroom ceiling, where water had busted through from the attic above:

There was so much water coming through that Rick had to empty the light fixture of the water (we made sure the electric was off!)

In the attic, we found the offender.  The tray under the air handler (for the air conditioning units) was leaking water. It had overflowed so much so that the water seeped through the attic flooring, through the bedroom ceiling, onto the bedroom floor and into the kitchen, two floors down.

As soon as we made this discovery, we called the peeps who have our home warranty and an hour later, a technician came round to look at the problem.  The guy found two issues: apparently, the tray should extend the whole way underneath the airhandler.  Secondly, the tray appears to be cracked, so it wasn’t holding in any of the water at all.  There was not much else that could be done so late on Friday night, except for turning the upstairs air conditioning unit off.  The guy will be ordering a new tray Monday, so hopefully it will be fixed sometime this week.  In the meantime, we need to start thinking about replacing the ceiling sheetrock in the kitchen and spare bedroom, plus the flooring in the attic and bedroom.  We’ll also have to replace that mattress – all that water means that it just isn’t salvageable.  We’re hoping the bedding will come out okay, although I’m not too optimistic.  Back to my usual self then

As part of our “relocate-dogs-from-the-dingy-dining-room” project, we’ve been planning on installing some French doors between the kitchen and office (you didn’t think we were referring to french kissing our dogs, did you?  Ewwww. We love our dogs, but not like that). 

When we’re out of the house, the new French doors will keep the dogs in the kitchen area and out of the office,  where pee puddles and computer equipment just don’t mix.

About here is when we show the customary before piccie. Beegee and T-Rex were kind enough to act as models in the impromptu doorway photoshoot.

Ok, so here’s a quick rundown of the steps we took to install the new doors.

1. Using a butt marker (yes, that is the correct technical term ), we measured and chiseled out the spots where the three hinges go on the door and the existing door framing.

2. We screwed the hinges to the door framing. 

3. Then, we hung the French door (after having to reposition one of the hinges by 1/8″).

4. Rick installed a stop-lock on top of the door.

5. We repeated steps 1-3 for the second door.

6. Using a door handle template, we drilled a hole for the locking handle.  Then, we screwed a matching closet handle to the other door.

7. Measured and cut trim to go around door (kitchen side) to make the doors only swing open into the office.

8. The final step was to tape off all the windows ready for painting (wow, did that take a  lot of time!). Applied two coats of paint to the door, trim and framing. 

And that’s it! We have new French doors, baby! Or should I say, nous avons de nouvelles portes françaises, bébé!

**Disclaimer: The picture here shows the door after the first coat of paint (with accompanying blue painters tape) and the trim is yet to be painted. It is not representative of the final product. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. Void where prohibited. Some assembly required. All major credit cards accepted. All models over 18 years of age. Batteries not included**

With the extra long Memorial Day weekend upon us, we have a number of projects planned to complete:

1. Convert dingy dog room into delightful dining room

2. Paint and install French doors between kitchen and office

3. Finish trench for outside landscape lights (and then mow grass!)

4. Grout the downstairs bathroom tile

5. Develop and upload secret photography project to blog

Not sure exactly how many of these projects will get done, but that’s the plan anyway.  Check back to see how we’re progressing and in the meantime, have a great Memorial Day weekend!