Diary of a Kitchen Renovation, Part 2 – What’s That You Say?

I’m writing to you while sipping coffee I brewed in the garage and snacking on the Costco trail mix that will be a staple of my diet for the next three to a million months.

The kitchen renovation has begun.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever watched one of those HGTV shows where they demolish a room, only to discover some hidden disaster lurking within to ruin all their plans? Are you raising your hand? Then please slap me with it, because I’m hyperventilating.

NOTHING IS GOING AS PLANNED!!!

Surprise #1: It seems there was a 6″ high slab of concrete hiding under some cabinets. It cannot be removed or our house will fall into the driveway. The cabinets we ordered, if placed onto the slab, would come up to my chest–not an ideal chopping height–so it’s time to change out the cabinets and create some sort of faux bottom that looks like a toe-kick but is really more of a kick in the head.

Surprise #2: Mold! “But don’t worry we got it all.” As in, don’t lose sleep imagining what your children were breathing for the past three years. Does someone have a paper bag?

Surprise #3: One of my favorite plans for the renovation was replacing a small window with a big window for more light, the illusion of more space, and a view of the patio while I’m doing the dishes. Unfortunately, the small window turns out to be a adjacent to a “shear wall,” which I had never heard of, but apparently is the thing that keeps your house from breaking when there’s an earthquake. So my window plans have been vastly curtailed. I said things like “This is very disappointing” and “Isn’t there anything you can do?” and I will submit that as my HGTV casting tape.