In this case, the D stands for "demo" - short for demolish. It's scheduled for this coming Thursday, June 11, 2009. I am packing, packing, packing, and it's not fun.
I started out trying to be organized and clean, but now I'm basically throwing stuff in boxes so that I can just get it done.
You cannot believe how much stuff you have until you have to take it all out and put it into boxes. And how dirty my cabinets are! Of course, I'm no clean freak, so I don't even think of things like emptying my upper shelves and cleaning the dust and dirt and bugs out of them. Yes, bugs. Dead ones, of course, but there have definitely been mealy moths and spiders around. Not to mention ants, but I actually haven't seen any ant carcases.
Ok, so this makes me realize and resolve to try to keep my new cabinets clean. On my kitchen's six month anniversary, I will start to clean one cabinet a month completely - taking everything out and wiping it down. Sure I will. :-)
On the fun side, my sink came in yesterday, my faucet is on the way, and my lights should start to arrive too. I stopped today to order my refrigerator, but found I would be charged sales tax for it. Certainly I should pay sales tax, but I am paying so much more for this refrigerator than I thought I would be paying (like everything else!), that it's making me rethink the whole thing AGAIN. Jeez, I am torturing myself over 3 cubic feet, is it worth it? Is it worth an additional $500? What about the cup pulls and pulls - I've made a federal issue out of whether to have cup over cup or cup over pull. I am not usually like this.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Monday, June 8, 2009
Cold Feet
It's the chairs.
See, we've have these two wing chairs with a table in between them.
For 14 years now, we've sat in these chairs while all sorts of stuff went on in the kitchen. I read the Sunday paper in those chairs. I nursed my babies in those chairs. They've been spilled on, spit up on, and abused in every way.
Well, yesterday one of Chuck's friends came over and took one of the chairs away. He may take the other one for his lake house. The act of this chair being removed from the kitchen has made the changes a reality for our family.
Everyone is sad to see the chairs go. They say that they will miss them. Russell asked me where he would sit in the morning, like he does now, and stare out the window - slowly waking up to the world. That's what did it. The answer to that question was that he would sit at the new bar or in the living room, or he could sit at the dining room table. But, they all seemed like a poor substitution for the current nook.
The panic set in immediately. Am I doing the right thing? Will I forever regret changing the kitchen to this new layout? Of course there will be adjustments. Heck, we still sometimes go for the coffee mugs in the cabinet that we had them in for 1 year before moving them (btw, they are going back across to where they were in this renovation!), but will we long for the view out the sliders?
I tried to picture Russell making his bagel in the morning and how he will now have to go across the kitchen and on to the other side in order to sit at the bar. It felt more inconvenient than I ever thought before.
See, we've have these two wing chairs with a table in between them.
For 14 years now, we've sat in these chairs while all sorts of stuff went on in the kitchen. I read the Sunday paper in those chairs. I nursed my babies in those chairs. They've been spilled on, spit up on, and abused in every way.
Well, yesterday one of Chuck's friends came over and took one of the chairs away. He may take the other one for his lake house. The act of this chair being removed from the kitchen has made the changes a reality for our family.
Everyone is sad to see the chairs go. They say that they will miss them. Russell asked me where he would sit in the morning, like he does now, and stare out the window - slowly waking up to the world. That's what did it. The answer to that question was that he would sit at the new bar or in the living room, or he could sit at the dining room table. But, they all seemed like a poor substitution for the current nook.
The panic set in immediately. Am I doing the right thing? Will I forever regret changing the kitchen to this new layout? Of course there will be adjustments. Heck, we still sometimes go for the coffee mugs in the cabinet that we had them in for 1 year before moving them (btw, they are going back across to where they were in this renovation!), but will we long for the view out the sliders?
I tried to picture Russell making his bagel in the morning and how he will now have to go across the kitchen and on to the other side in order to sit at the bar. It felt more inconvenient than I ever thought before.
I've had very few moments of panic during this process. I'm sure I will have more, I just hope that, when this is over, the moments of panic become a simple shake of the head and chuckle.
Saturday, June 6, 2009
The design
Haven't had time to blog - I've been spending lots of time on-line trying to research sinks, faucets, lights, and refrigerators. It's exhausting!
Well, since we are 41 days away from completion (may have to adjust that date!), we obviously have a design.
I had gone around and around with what to do with our floor plan. I had thought about knocking down the wall into the dining room, then using that space and current kitchen space for a long, narrow kitchen. But we use our dining room A LOT, so I didn't want to lose it. We don't use our living room that much, so I thought about moving the dining room to the living room, but I didn't want to completely lose all the living room space. The living room space is too big for just the dining room (12x20), plus I was concerned about re-sale (way, way down the line, but still this would be a very permanent decision). But I couldn't fit both the dining room and living room without it looking weird (I have a huge picture window in the living room that made the space awkward to split in half).
What I finally decided on is what I call the 3-way compromise. I'm opening up the kitchen to the DR and the DR and half of the kitchen wall to the LR. I'm building a "buffet" area for more storage along the half wall.
We will use the living room a lot more with this design, and I think that's a good thing. I'm giving up my little "nook" in the kitchen where people used to hang, but I am hoping that the LR will now be the nook, and people will be much more comfortable, and more people can be in the space. In addition, with it open to the DR now, we have that space as an extension of the kitchen. Everyone tells me that it is going to feel much bigger.
The reason I call this a "three way compromise" is because 1) I'm not really gaining any cabinet space - and I thought I was actually losing counter top square footage, but it turns out I am gaining it - but I'm not sure if it will be as usable as my big peninsula is today. We'll see. 2) I am losing 3" in the dining room and giving up having a "room" that is separate from the kitchen - it won't be formal and you can't block it from the kitchen mess, and 3) I am losing precious wall space in the living room where I already lose space to the big window, and the fireplace. I am still trying to figure out where the Christmas tree will go this year . . .
But, now that the design was finally decided, I started to get really excited . . .
Well, since we are 41 days away from completion (may have to adjust that date!), we obviously have a design.
I had gone around and around with what to do with our floor plan. I had thought about knocking down the wall into the dining room, then using that space and current kitchen space for a long, narrow kitchen. But we use our dining room A LOT, so I didn't want to lose it. We don't use our living room that much, so I thought about moving the dining room to the living room, but I didn't want to completely lose all the living room space. The living room space is too big for just the dining room (12x20), plus I was concerned about re-sale (way, way down the line, but still this would be a very permanent decision). But I couldn't fit both the dining room and living room without it looking weird (I have a huge picture window in the living room that made the space awkward to split in half).
What I finally decided on is what I call the 3-way compromise. I'm opening up the kitchen to the DR and the DR and half of the kitchen wall to the LR. I'm building a "buffet" area for more storage along the half wall.
We will use the living room a lot more with this design, and I think that's a good thing. I'm giving up my little "nook" in the kitchen where people used to hang, but I am hoping that the LR will now be the nook, and people will be much more comfortable, and more people can be in the space. In addition, with it open to the DR now, we have that space as an extension of the kitchen. Everyone tells me that it is going to feel much bigger.
The reason I call this a "three way compromise" is because 1) I'm not really gaining any cabinet space - and I thought I was actually losing counter top square footage, but it turns out I am gaining it - but I'm not sure if it will be as usable as my big peninsula is today. We'll see. 2) I am losing 3" in the dining room and giving up having a "room" that is separate from the kitchen - it won't be formal and you can't block it from the kitchen mess, and 3) I am losing precious wall space in the living room where I already lose space to the big window, and the fireplace. I am still trying to figure out where the Christmas tree will go this year . . .
But, now that the design was finally decided, I started to get really excited . . .
Thursday, May 28, 2009
The Journey
So many, many ideas. I've come a long, long way since I started planning. I have had this renovation spinning around in my mind for years.
I finally had to organize my thoughts around the main goals:
- Update the main components of the kitchen: cabinets, floor, counter tops. We had recently replaced the dishwasher and OTR microwave, so we only had to consider whether the range/oven and refrigerator needed to be replaced.
- Eliminate the bottleneck at the entrance/stairs to next level.
- Ease some of the tight spots - the corner near the oven/range (where you cannot open the drawer the full way unless you open the oven first), and the corner of the peninsula (very tight spot where I store all my baking pans and cookie sheets, etc.)
All and all, the three items above were my worst complaints about my kitchen. I sometimes got aggravated at the cabinet space (the two blind corners were the wasteland that most complain about). My "glass land" cabinet is a danger - with Corning Ware read to fall out and break at any second - but basically, the kitchen works for the most part.
My major challenge with achieving the 3 goals above was that the existing usable kitchen space was very small. On one wall, I had 8' available, on the other wall, just a little over 9'. The two walls were 10'6" apart. I had a doorway into the kitchen (from entry way), a large patio slider out to the deck, and a doorway into the dining room. The work triangle was 1x5x4' - very efficient, yet tight. If more than one person was in the work "square" (about 5x5'), we would end up doing the bump.
And so, the journey began to find just the right layout that would alleviate all our problems, maintain what we liked about the current kitchen, and achieve our ultimate goal.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Three years already . . .
Ok, so this is the first blog entry, but I've been in the planning stages for this renovation for over 3 years. I knew that I was going to need to update the kitchen, and I knew that I didn't want to just replace what was existing, so I started talking about it to Chuck (DH) - getting him used to the idea. I knew it would take him a while to agree to it - or at least not fight me on it.
So now we are approximately two weeks away from starting demo, and I thought it would be fun and interesting to chronical the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of living through what I hope will be my last kitchen renovation.
So now we are approximately two weeks away from starting demo, and I thought it would be fun and interesting to chronical the thoughts, feelings, and experiences of living through what I hope will be my last kitchen renovation.
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