Some Befores, Some Durings, and Some Afters...The Kitchen Chronicles

The last few months in my little world have looked, on paper, like a fairytale.

First there was Christmas, then our family took a long awaited vacation to DisneyWorld,

and when we returned I learned I would be getting a new kitchen one I've been dreaming of for quite a few years.

It sounds pretty wonderful doesn't it? If you leave out the part where the dishwasher pipe busted and where the kitchen flooded and where our friend with the flu spent much time trying to vacuum water from the kitchen carpet while we traveled home from Florida.

This carpet squished when stepped on...

...so it left

 ...but the sink went with it and its replacement hasn't yet arrived!

Leave out too, the part where the weather turned frigid again and the furnace lagged behind 10 degrees and also the washing of dish after dish by hand in a very chilly basement washtub. While you're at it, erase from the story the countertop issue that has kept us from kitchen completion for the last 2 weeks as we just sit and wait.

There was much consternation about paint choices ...

...and cabinet doors and a missing microwave, not to mention the 35 cabinet pulls that I fell in love with at the store but hated when I brought them home.

{These are the pulls that replaced the originals. Turns out that they are the same ones I chose for the main bathroom when we remodeled it 5 years ago. Consistency...that's the key, I say.}

There were island bar stools that had to be gathered from three different towns in our state.

Really though, in the end...so worth it, to me anyway, Pappa and my Man may be thinking differently but wow! I'm over-the-moon excited about this almost finished thing of beauty in which I will be feeding and gathering my people.

When folks ask me, "How's the kitchen coming?" I tell them how quickly my father-in-law turned this empty room with injured and incomplete walls...

...into a room with a fancy new floor...

...and cabinets...

...even as Cole and my Man attempted to shove him into a tiny little one.

It took him merely 10 days (with a little help from a varied cast of characters)...

to go from this...

...to this...

and from this...

...to this...

Ten days! 

Then we waited for more than two weeks and on Monday we anticipate a big finish as the countertops and sink are to arrive and be installed which will then allow for the finishing attachments for the dishwasher and the disposal. I've never been so excited to do dishes!! Never. It might be nearly as much fun as taking the whole thing apart in the first place...

I've learned so much...mainly that everything in life seems to take longer and take much more effort when the hub of the home is under construction. 

• When the washing machine has become the dish drying location you must put all of the dishes away before you can do laundry. 
• When you freeze carrots before cooking them, the slow cooker cannot. handle. them. 
• Neither can the family.
• Slow cooker Korean beef is a do over. Let's talk more about that soon.
• It's difficult to chop salad ingredients with no countertops. I miss salad.
• It's difficult to do many, many tasks with no countertop. 
• Relocating the coffee maker to the basement was a BIG MISTAKE. It is difficult to descend the basement stairs before having a cup of coffee plus the cream was upstairs in the fridge.
• The amount of work one man can accomplish with an early morning start is simply astounding.
• It is possible to homeschool while the kitchen is under construction. It is possible to read a long book while the kitchen is under construction. It is possible to post witty blog entries while the kitchen is under construction. It is NOT possible to do any more than ONE of these activities while the kitchen is under construction. Alas.
• On the day when your dream oven is installed, your family will be gracious enough to listen to you read the entire instruction manual aloud to them while they eat lunch. They will even nod and feign interest just to share in your enjoyment. (But they will make fun of you every day thereafter as a result.)

I've got a few more kitchen posts planned and hopefully will have them posted soon after we've declared the big adventure "finished". I'll show you pictures of the countertops in place and the sink and the ...well, I'll show you where I'll be cookin' and I'll give you the recipe for the Korean beef and I'll share some links I've been saving about...kitchens.

Then...well, there's a bathroom upstairs that has been needing some attention...aye aye aye!

Wishing you a happy weekend!!