Dave and I are not renovation people.
We chose our home because it seemingly needed nothing done. Everything was tasteful and up-to-date, including the small but cute kitchen boasting a suite of Viking appliances. Unfortunately, those appliances had a secret suicide pact.
It started with the above-range microwave, which–we’d been warned by our home inspector–had been installed one inch too close to the cook-top. How big a deal could one inch be? Big enough to melt the microwave’s control panel, which we paid to replace. Going forward, we could only use the leftmost burners, which happened to also be the finicky ones, often requiring matches to light the gas. It’s never too soon for kids to learn about starting fires, amiright?
Honestly, we could have lived with these quirks for years if it weren’t for the oven. Turning on the “bake” feature shorted out the entire house. We had to flip the outdoor main breaker just to get the lights back on and let’s just say the cookies did not turn out great. We have not had an oven since November of last year (after it was deemed an electrical hazard and put outside), and in that time I have become quite the expert at preparing entire meals in the toaster.
Even without an oven, we continued to struggle against the notion of renovating the kitchen, as we had heard it leads to divorce. And besides, if we were going to invest in renovating anything, shouldn’t it be my 40-something face? But alas, after I bought and returned two ovens which seemed like they might but then didn’t quite fit into the existing cut-out, we succumbed.
I found a kitchen designer who appears to work much like our wedding coordinator did: show me 3 choices so I can just pick one because too many options leads to panic and yelling. It’s a good thing for HGTV (“House Hunters” and “Love or it List It” feature prominently in our at-home date nights) or we would not have understood the profound importance of choosing the right grout, stacked vs. staggered, or how to seem appropriately shocked when things run over time and budget.
Speaking of which, I’m told it will take 10-12 weeks to turn our small white kitchen into a small white kitchen. I’m excited for a new sink (this split sink has been killing us – so much water on my shirt and on the floor…)
…And a pull-out pantry (yipee!) to replace no pantry. And some other stuff that I’ll write about later. During the renovation, we’ll be taking our meals in our garage (don’t hate us because we’re beautiful) with the help of Costco paper plates, an extra fridge and my Keurig, which if I was Ancient Egyptian royalty would be entombed with me.
The demolition begins Monday (!) and I’m feeling like the only way to get through this is going to be writing about it. So please join me on this journey (if trekking to the garage every time I’m thirsty qualifies as a journey), and do leave encouraging comments. I promise to share my recipes for microwave cocktails and coffee maker pudding.
XOXO
READ DIARY OF A KITCHEN RENOVATION PART 2