Local Flavor: Kitchen Woes

Those of you who have been to the shop know that we live in half of the building and run the shop out of the other half. The shop side dates to the 1930s, we think, and the house side is late 1800s. Over time we've done a lot of work to the place, but because of the excruciating amount of layers built-up by previous occupants, progress is always slow.

Last week I destroyed a monster center-console counter and took 4 layers of linoleum-on-plywood up from our kitchen and excavated the original, layered pine floors. Unfortunately, that particular patch of wood was smeared in black mastic (glue) from 1930s linoleum, so rather than shorten my life removing it (and then the two layers of lead-likely milk paint under it), we painted-over instead.

As you can see, the rest of the floor (in the living-room) is jacked-up like the kitchen was, so that's hopefully something I get to destroy in summer. We have the original wood floors peeking out in all of the upstairs and so having the downstairs uglified the entire time we've been here has been a sticking-point of frustration. Standing on boards feels great and having a new butcher-block counter feels even better, especially since the work-flow is streamlined. There's nothing worse than cooking and feeling like you're stuck in a box.

So, bottom line? Progress is good stuff for this gloomiest (weather-wise) time of the year. Tomorrow I promise to share instrument pics. I've got a beat-up old Oscar Schmidt done and I'm hoping to bang-out an old Fairbanks banjo, too.