Ants are not the story

So we had ants. It was bad. We got rid of them. But that's a separate post entirely. For the purposes of this post, the only important fact to know about the ants is that we discovered they were trying to make a home in what was apparently accessible space between the sink and the counter. We sprayed some water in there and this is what our sink looked like.

 Ewwwww....(though not as bad as last year's ant infestation).

It turned out that the caulking around the sink was moldy and barely there - something we probably should have noticed years ago and re-caulked frequently. Caulk, and trying to create a nice "bead" always sounded very intimidating. It wasn't our first try at it. But it was pretty close.

 D did all the work while I entertained the kids. First out came the old stuff, totally black (it's supposed to be clear):

Then to the caulk gun! We considered buying a brand that came in a regular squeeze tube, but it needed at least 24 hours to cure. This one needed only an hour or two (though we left it overnight). Given it's our kitchen sink and we have a kitchen disaster after each and every meal, we really couldn't go that long without the sink.

 There's the caulk line:

 And the final touch to get it just right:

Before the clear caulk dried out and while he was on a roll, D did the same thing with our bathroom sink upstairs. We didn't take before pictures, but it was already a little black and dingy. Here it is, refreshed:

And finally, it was time for the bathtub. Funny enough, this bathtub project had been on our to-do list already and we'd purchased caulk and acquired the necessary tools just in time for that tree to fall on our house and distract us from smaller projects. Now with two additional re-caulks already complete, it was time for the tub. The caulk was 5-years old and pretty dingy - no amount of scrubbing or bleach seemed to clean it, and it was starting to peel in places.

So scape the old stuff:

 No more  caulk:

And...voila! A bright white bathtub line again! It really looks so much better now. I think D managed to caulk everything that could be caulked. Hopefully we're good for another 5 years or so!

See? This post wasn't about ants.

The next one will be.

Fair warning (but actually, there are no scary pictures, so don't worry).

We're still here...Now with Purple!

Yet another long stretch of no progress combined with a struggle to take pictures left a lot of readers (all three of you) in suspense about the room. Well wait no longer. It is finally (mostly) back to some semblance of normal.

After the mid-August drywall installation another 10 days or so passed with no progress, partly because we went on vacation and partly due to bad planning on the part of the contractors. Then in late August they painted, finally. Our big "upgrade" from this chaos is that we let our pre-schooler select a color for the alcove, since there was a discrete set of walls and an obvious place to end the color change (and it wasn't like we had enough green in the can anyway so they'd have to buy a new gallon). No surprise that she picked PURPLE! She picked Sherwin Williams Dahlia and we compromised by going one shade lighter (which was plenty dark, as we learned from the neon green in the rest of the room) to Awesome Violet (SW 6815). To my surprise, we still had our light blue ceiling paint and they were able to blend the line so the ceiling is still all sky blue. That section now has no clouds of course (and probably never will) but at least it all goes together.

They installed new baseboards and other small things as well. The window wasn't ready from the manufacturer so the hole stayed boarded up and the corner stayed dark (I swear I took a picture from that day but I can't find it anymore).

There was a redo on the baseboards (they were about a half inch taller than the existing ones) that delayed us yet another few days while they waited for some rain to stop (all their cutting equipment had to get set up outside) and then because they failed to plan for store closures on Labor Day. Then finally, finally, they fixed the baseboards and framed the window (though it was still boarded up...).

And then Lo and Behold, just last week (7 weeks after the tree fell on our house, if you're keeping score), the window was ready and the room was done!

Of course by now we had completely lost the curtain hardware (more is on the way!). And another funny problem is that the outlet (seen above in the lower left of the picture) is now covered by the corner bookshelf. They must have mounted it in a slightly different place than it was originally and it's now no longer accessible when the furniture is back in its original place. Darn. The contractors also weren't nearly as picky as I am on their paint work, so I did a little touching up on the edges myself.

But at least this place is starting to look normal again! We have a new rug (the other one had so much glass and wood on it that I would always have been a little worried no matter how much we vacuumed it and shook it out). Toys and books are all finding their way back to their original homes. And the curtains can probably go back up this weekend.

 7 weeks. 7 long weeks.

(This is not quite the end of the story - there's a bit more outside work to discuss another time...)