That Sink-ing Feeling

Get ready for some truly gross before pictures! I mean, our sink was BAD. Last year, pre-tornado, we were aware that the faucet on the kitchen sink leaked. Water was seeping out from under the (badly chipped!) metal housing and oozing down around the sink and between the wall and the countertop. I even (cringe) removed a few mushrooms that sprouted in that crevice between the wall and the faucet. Hey! They were small...

Here's the underneath- unpleasantly soggy and one of those places in your house you don't want to even think about, let alone dwell on. And this is the cleaned out picture! There were boxes of things like steel wool pads that had disintegrated so completely that when I reached in to remove them, they dissolved into a nasty smeary, rusty rotten pile of slime. It was awful cleaning everything out from under the sink.
And the sink itself! Holy cow! It was never a paragon of sink perfection but as it was made of plastic, it just became entirely stained and no amount of Bartender's Helper's Friend helped. Take a look:

Wow... even I'm impressed by how hideous that was!
So I was attempting to say that we meant to do the sink/ counter/cabinet replacement last year but never got to it as we had so much exterior clean up to do. But Bob and our intrepid friend Joe (thanks Joe!) set to work on Tuesday and tore all this nastiness out.

 Here's Joe's arm being featured alongside the old cabinet (and dishwasher) that are a-comin' out. Notice the lovely neon lime green wall detailing: I think the entire kitchen was once that refreshing color! (Yeeeesh!! My eyes!) Anyway, here's what it looked like after circuit breaker had been tripped, water had been shut off and cabinets had made their way to the backyard:

Bob and Joe cleaned that disaster up and I painted the interior white. (I also did my (small) part by painting all the doors, trim boards, floor boards and various other connection pieces white... the least I could do!) Enough eye sore! I'll post the happier photos of successful rebuilding the cabinet and installing the sink in a few days!

Opening Up

Door Progress! Bob and Joe are hard at work cutting out a section of the wall so I don't have to climb through a window to get into my studio (or go all the  way around the house outside.) It's a labor intensive procedure as they have to cut through two layers of boards and remove a stud and a cross member.
It's funny, in the photo above you can see clear through the window (to Joe's right) because Bob removed that this morning. It's thrilling to me to see this advancing the great cause of Rita's studio...
Our friend Jonathan the Electrician came yesterday and rerouted the wires that ran through the wall. He made it look so simple. I was so pleased that he was able to come; I dreaded that I might have to wait a week or so and we really couldn't cut the hole in the wall until he rewired us. You can see the new path for the wire up and over what will be the doorway.
The living room is a real mess right now. It's hard to answer the phone because all the chairs are pushed around and the rug is rolled up and in my present studio. The beginning of a big transition!
Bob is wielding that drill because they have to drill holes in the wall so that they can see where to use the saws all. Joe is marking where the header will go. Me? I'm getting ready to order pizza for dinner. I have to do something to help out!