It’s zero dark thirty here and I’m up, piddling around in my gutted kitchen. I made the first cup of coffee in the laundry room, and cleaned up more trash. My brain couldn’t shut down or stay shut down, rather, so up I came.
I secretly love (and hate) those mornings when I happen to rise early. Quiet, dark mornings are good for the soul but bad for the puffy eyes.
Well, after waiting since January, we began our kitchen renovation on Tuesday. And by Tuesday afternoon…
The kitchen was empty and they were laying in bases. We chose to hire out the kitchen work–we’ve gone back and forth the last couple of years on doing the work ourselves and hiring it out. We finally decided the kitchen was the room we could live with not DIY’ing. We’ve already run into several obstacles/issues, and now it’s looking like we’ll be without a kitchen for the next 3 weeks. Honestly, that’s not that bad I suppose…if you aren’t trying to eat clean and healthfully and not camp out in the morning McDonald’s line.
We’ll figure it out.
I’m also recognizing that we may or may still be in the throws of this messy living when we have the Book Launch Party at the shop in July. Whoa.
But…so it goes with renovation and home improvement. We’ll make the best of it and grill out and eat on paper plates (we do that all the time anyway), and we’ll enjoy the time as much as we can.
So, already, on Wednesday, they began getting bases set and some of the upper’s on the left side…
Yes, we went from white to white. I’m predictable, I’m sure. There’s just something about a white kitchen.
Some plans:
- We won’t change major appliances minus the cooktop.
- We lowered the “bar” to counter height to create more surface prep and save costs on counters
- We pulled the cabinetry out to fully surround the fridge like built-ins (before it was pushed back)
- We’re going back to cabinet doors on the right side of the wall, with open shelving in a few spots for display
- I put a drawer everywhere they’d let me & slide out “drawers” as shelves (there’s nothing worse than wasted cabinet space you can’t reach. am i right or am i right??)
- We’ll change a little of the lighting and the barstools, and a couple of accent pieces
- We’re adding reclaimed open shelving to the left of the freezer–where the kitchen desk is.
That covers most of the renovation plans, and now that I’ve had a quiet moment, I may slip back under the covers now. Until next time…
I feel your pain on the cooking. I had to make do with a griddle, a crockpot and a microwave while washing dishes in the bathroom sink. You might want to check this comment thread on the Nester for some cooking sans kitchen ideas. http://www.thenester.com/2013/08/what-do-i-cook-when-the-kitchen-is-gutted.html/comment-page-1#comments
Wow! Such progress in just a couple of days. Can’t wait to see it finished… and that fridge… wow…. I would be in heaven…. lol!
Haven’t had the chance to see the finished product but just wanted to chip in my 2 cents worth – don’t worry about the shelves and stuff in the kitchen yet. Just make sure you don’t have any LESS storage room than what you originally had and you’ll be fine! My family is constantly trying to get me to renovate the kitchens so it has more storage for plates, but that’s not gonna happen for a while I can tell you! Be frugal!