Quote of the week:

“They'd have to shoot me to get me back to Illnois."

~Abraham Lincoln upon going to WDC to become president

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Everything but the Kitchen Sink



In lieu of the kitchen sink, I’m including a pic of my kitchen floor. Why? It’s photographic evidence for my Mom, that I do indeed know how to clean my apartment and mop a floor. Not only did I mop, but I stripped off the old wax and re-waxed the floor. This is an event that does NOT occur with great regularity. I even took apart the range top and scrubbed it, and cleaned/polished the stainless steel a few weekends ago. I designed my kitchen and even the pattern of the floor. As a narrow, galley kitchen, placing the floor tiles on the diagonal with the room, gives the illusion that the room is wider and longer than it is. The ceiling I installed (which you can't see, obviously) is a pressed tin ceiling. I tried to meld the old 'feel' of the building/apartment with creating a new, functional kitchen .
The only good thing that occurred from my various surgeries, broken bones, etc., was that when my parents came up to help me out, my Mom would clean my apartment from front to back (with the exception of my bedroom, which was an unspoken mutual agreement that she did not want to be rummaging around in my bedroom. My Mom is generally appalled with my housekeeping (or absence there of) attributes. My apartment isn’t so much dirty as it is messy. Enough so at times, that my gay card could be revoked. When you have chronic health problems, mopping the kitchen floor every week isn’t at the top of the list. I’m a packrat. In that aspect, I am so much my Father’s son. Sometimes I feel like I got all of the negative traits from both each parent, and few of the good.

The view from this pic: I am standing in the back door, off my apartment, looking in. You will note the documentation of my predilection for the shades, tones and hues of purple in the floor and walls. I did the gut rehab of my kitchen BPC*. I have the chef’s kitchen (as much as one can have in a galley kitchen in a turn of the last century classic Chicago building), that my Mom and my Aunt Alice always should have had. Once I had my new kitchen, I had all these plans for throwing fabulous dinner parties and entertaining guests. The Universe had other plans. If I were doing it over today, given the same circumstances and limitations, there are very few things I'd do differently.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whoa, that looks like a pretty sweet oven. Jealously is setting in.

Not Important said...

It's a lovely floor. And the blue color is striking.

gay CME guy said...

Not that I'm a size queen, but I do love my 36" Wolf Range. One of the things I'd do differently is the cooktop. I have 4 burners with a ceramic grill in the center. Grilling on the cooktop makes a total mess out of everything. After grilling, I pretty much have to completely dismantal the top: grates, burners, tray and scrub down. It's an ordeal, especially for someone who would rather do most anything than clean up. If I were doing it now, I'd get 6 burners or the griddle in the center section. I need to find someone who hates to cook, but likes clean. I'd do all the cooking and baking if he'd clean up the kitchen after me.
gdad: Thanks. It actually does look good when it's cleaned and freshly waxed. Because I went higher end on most other things, for the floor, I went with the basic commercial linoleum square composit tiles for budgetary reasons. Since I went the 'cheaper' route, I thought I'd at least spice it up with some color, and funky pattern. My phone cam doesn't do justice to the colors: the darker tile is a purple (think grape Kool-aid), the lighter (large) square is more lilac, and the smaller square button tile is a grayish-lavendar, and the walls are a periwinkle purple. (It's really not as pussy looking as it sounds in print). After all was said and done, my contractor told me, "when you first told me of your plan for the floor, I thought this is going to be hiddeous. But I have to admit, it looks great." The clincher was when my parents came up for the first time after I did the kitchen, my Mom, who is not wont to doll out compliments nor praise, said, "I really like your floor."

gay CME guy said...

one correction--the dark tile is like a cross between grape Kool-Aid and Eggplant. Very dark purple, but none of the brown tones that are inherent in eggplant.

Tea N. Crumpet said...

My daughter, Cloud, looked at that and she said it is so clean she could do cartwheels in your kitchen!

Sweet blog-- what does CME stand for?

Oh, I dropped in from gdad's blog. Hello!

Not Important said...
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