Category: house

The light in our kitchen is one of those 1970s/80s florescent things with the wood trim and the plexiglass panels. We’ve pretty much detested it since we moved in – it’s dim, yellow, ugly, and date, and half of the fixtures were dead. The ones that were left have been gradually flickering, then perishing, until we were down to one. We have vague plans to someday remodel the kitchen counters and would install can lights at that point if we ever got there, or maybe track lighting if we didn’t have enough ceiling/roof clearance for cans. But Kevin decided that the moment had come and this was something he could definitely take care of himself, so he did. He ordered new fixtures and new bulbs, removed the leaking (toxic?) old ones, and installed the new. He also found new plexiglass panels that aren’t yellowed (!) and let a lot more of the light through. He started with 6 bulbs, then removed them one by one until we were no longer wincing from the brightness every time we walked in the kitchen. This photo was with all six:

You can actually do dishes at night and see what you are working on! It’s still not modern or pretty, but it’s completely amazing what a difference it’s made. 🙂

The big project for the last week or so has been finally getting the lights mounted. Our old chandelier (which we hated, you can see it in all its globular glory here) crashed to the ground almost exactly a year ago (a more dramatic ending than we would have ordered, but good riddance), and we finally found new ones that we liked at the beginning of the summer, after looking for several years. We finally schemed a strategy for mounting them, and Kevin did all of the routing and drilling and electrical work over several days. We are so excited about the result.

The lamps are the Benjamin Industrial Pendants in weathered copper from Barn Light Electric Company.

We were able to mount them without moving the existing hole in the ceiling, which is good since we don’t have good ways of pulling wires through that top section (due to the framing) or of patching the wood ceiling.

I love the way the brushed copper looks against the wood ceiling and green walls. We have kind of a lot of mismatched styles in that room, things I wouldn’t have chosen but that somehow work, and to find something that I thought was pretty on its own and prettier in the context of the room feels like quite the victory.

So, success, and a good project off the list a mere month before our five year anniversary of moving in.

The microwave emitted a loud pop on Tuesday night and then ceased to function. Can’t imagine why (the thing’s only 27 years old).

I read when I was pregnant that the seal on the door is the first thing to go, and the unsafe radius is within 5 feet, so since then we’ve all duly tromped out of the kitchen while the thing heats. This microwave was definitely pre-rotating trays, and we had to nuke everything for 3-5 times the normal time…

We used the oven only once (during a brown dinner, accidentally) and it smoked and put out a terrible electrical smell.

We’ve been teetering on the edge of replacing it for years, but since it’s built into the wall, it felt like the removal of the microwave meant the beginning of the kitchen remodel, and we’re still saving up money and patience. This seemed like a pretty clear sign. Kevin was thinking that we could keep the microwave + oven in place, and buy a counter top model for the time being. I mulled that for two days, then decided my thinking was that we could remove the entire unit, get appliance removable people to haul it away, and find or build a temporary shelf to hold our new microwave until we get closer to looking at the kitchen in earnest.

Done, done, and done – now we just need to find and buy a new microwave. I’m particularly proud of us for getting people to remove it the same day we took it out of the wall instead of doing our typical excessively cheap/DIY pattern of storing it in the garage for months until the next community trash day, and then self-hauling to the dump in my car. Instead, we paid them $77 and they picked it up 6 hours after we called, and carefully removed it from where we’d left it in the middle of the kitchen floor. Yay.

I know it leaves a huge hole that we’ll have to fill (not that the trash compactor removal 3.5 years ago didn’t), but it looks SO great without it, and I’m so excited not to have to think and wonder about it anymore. We’ve been having fun with the adjectives all day – you just don’t want a retro/vintage/antique microwave. Farewell, you relic.