Walls May Come and Go, But Toddlers Requesting Breakfast Out of the Garbage is Forever

My partner in crime and I and I are a perfect match for each other home improvement and DIY-wise, because he lets the perfect be the enemy of the good, and I never finish anything.

Which is just a different way of saying we've had cement floors in our dining area for half a year now, and we're barely creeping toward the finish line.

I wanted to post "before and after" pictures, but the truth is that I never take before pictures, and by the time we ever finish everything, I will have forgotten where I put these "during" pictures.

So I offer my normal: during and during pictures.

I'm pretty sure I posted it on my Facebook page when I decided I couldn't stand the carpet in the dining area one more nanosecond.  Of course "before" pictures would have wasted that nanosecond, but click here to see it in all its the bar mitzvah  prep glory back in 2010.

Here's how it more or less looked from the kitchen side, although the refrigerator had been pulled over and the pantry door opened and the garbage can providing back up reinforcements to keep all cats and toddlers out of the bare cement dinging room.

Because.  Our cement floor has a great big old sign on it that says, "Use me as a litter box!"  Apparently.

The bad part was, the carpet that used to be on top of the bare cement also apparently had a huge sign on it that said, "Please PLEASE use me for a giant litter box!  For the love of cats, there is NO other place to relieve your furry self in this entire house!  Especially not the litter box."

And so I did the logical thing which was to ignore the problem as long as I could and then start ripping up the carpet on a day when I couldn't stand it even a moment longer.

Then my partner in crime needed to help me, because to paraphrase my off site travel journalist (who was then two or three), He "wants it the way he wants it!"

Here's where the surprise came in for me.  After five years of talking about taking down the wall, I just figured that talking was as far as we'd ever get.  What I didn't realize was that my partner in crime would not want to move forward on replacing the carpet until the wall had disappeared.

So then I figured, "Well okay, no big deal.  My partner in crime has plenty of hammers and mallets in the garage."

But he kept throwing around words like, "load bearing" and I decided against throwing caution to the wind.  Because you just never know when wind might turn in to the next hurricane.  So that's why we hired someone to knock down the wall instead.

There's still PLENTY to be done.  If you've ever known the joy of NOT doing the breakfast dishes on a Saturday morning, you'll realize how wonderful it was to have my partner in crime working directly over the sink and dishwasher right after breakfast:

And that's why, a kajillion dollars and much blood, sweat, and tears later we are still no closer to having something besides bare cement in the dining area.

Which only goes to show that walls may come and go, but toddlers requesting to eat breakfast out of the garbage is forever:

To totally change the subject without warning, last month I promised a free recipe card printable.  I've been lollygagging a little, because I've never actually offered a printable before, free or otherwise.

I think I have this a good, workable size (4x6) but if you have any trouble with it at all, I will certainly be willing to tweak it and re-post.  Please let me know how and if it works out for you (in the comments).

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD

If you'd like to see more of the kitchen re-do, try these posts:

If Only We'd Have Known We Could Have Just Locked the Cat in the Bathroom, We Wouldn't Have Had to Do this Whole Kitchen Renovation Thing

Our Kitchen Renovation Has Leaked Out All Over the Living Room

Of Digestive Disease and Washi Tape (I had no idea putting washi tape on drinking glasses would be so popular!)