Kitchen!!!

Okay, this blog would be done better by Wade, but I will give it my best shot!
Once upon a time, two young newlyweds/parents of ONE bought a lovely house. There were only three major problems with the house: 1) no (functional) garage; 2) the lovely peach color outside with the teal/magenta trim; and 3) the KITCHEN!!! We (and by we I mean me) promised that we would make the best of the situation until we (and by we this time I mean Wade,) got a chance to fix any of those situations. Fast forward three and a half years--add one more little boy, two masters programs, preschool, job changes, a wedding or two....and there are STILL three major issues with this house! We have figured out the garage situation (it is going to cost a LOT of money, and it is in our five year plan,) and the color (you'll see, things should be different by labor day.) The kitchen is the problem currently being addressed.

Now, I don't want to sound ungrateful, but here were some of the big complaints that I had with the kitchen (NONE of them were cosmetic!) First, I had no counter top space. There was a fold up 10 inch flap next to the sink, but that was it! Everything was free standing in the kitchen so it didn't call for long counter tops. Secondly, I had a sink that only had one basin and wasn't deep. It made it very hard to do dishes (which directly relates to the fact that I didn't have a dishwasher.) Next, my stove is almost original to the house. As far as I can tell by my research it is an early 1940's Tappan gas stove. I very much actually love the stove, and it works very well, but in the early 1940's they didn't exactly engineer the glass not to burn little hands. Fourth, apparently giant amazon people lived here before us. The cupboards that I did have were on the wall--none on the floor--and they were attached to the ceiling. I could only reach one of the shelves without a stool. And, last but not least, the kitchen had a door that connected to a bathroom. The problem with that was that it just took up so much space, and the door helped create a loop through the downstairs. Don't get me wrong the boys loved the loop---many, many, many hours have been spent running through the house, but it had to go.

So, about six weeks ago, having taken all of this into consideration, the kitchen renovation began! Keep in mind, Wade and I are both in school, Wade is busier than ever with work, and Aidan's new school requires me to spend at least six hours a week driving him back and forth...this is definitely not a sprint! To help at the beginning, I took the boys for a long weekend away. I think Wade and I had a few too many 'extreme home makeover' visions in our heads, and we both thought it would move a little faster and smoother, but the kitchen was not on our side! Originally, we were just going to add paint and appliances to what was already there, but....

I returned the first weekend to find that Wade had decided to gut the whole kitchen (see the pictures.) He wasn't terribly thrilled with his progress on the weekend, but he did at least get a chance to expose ALL of the wiring. That would come to be very beneficial to him later.

Then, a long timeout...Aidan, Owen and I all fell to the flu (the real kind, not the tummy version.) Somehow, Wade escaped it, but considering that I had become pretty much useless and that the kitchen sits right below the boys room, Wade's duties changed from contractor to Mr. mom. Once everyone was better, he dug back in only to find that he had NO IDEA how to deal with the wiring. On a side note, to anyone who is a realtor, don't give buyers half truths--especially when there is little kiddos in their family. When we bought this house, from a baptist minister no-less, we were told that the wiring had been re-done. No, it said that it had been 'updated,' and there's no way a minister would lie right?! Nope. In our house, updated meant that they had put ONE FLIPPIN LIGHT SWITCH into the kitchen, and it wasn't even done right. So, Wade bought a lot of books, spent a lot of time researching knob and tube wiring, and called a LOT of electricians. The best we could do was wait six weeks for the earliest available electrician to get to us. While waiting, we sanded, stained and varnished the cupboards. I also got to take my new dishwasher out of the box just to look at...it's so pretty! Suddenly, one day (while reading another book) Wade figured it all out, cancelled the electrician and got back to work. Now, this freaked me out a little bit, but I made him promise that if he came to anything that he was questioning even a little that he would stop and call an electrician. No calls were ever made, and we got power back. Did I mention that during those weeks, we didn't have lights in the entire downstairs and we were living off our microwave upstairs...yep, way fun!

So, with electrical done we were onto plumbing. This meant another weekend away with the boys for me. It worked out to coincide w/ Dad and Lynne's garage sale--and everyone knows that the best thing to help with a garage sale is a stressed out young mother and two little boys with a combined age of five! ;) When I returned, not only did I find some pipes sticking out of the ground, but DRYWALL!!!! Woo Hoo!!! Finally, the drywall has moved from my dining room to the walls of my kitchen. That is where we are now: working through getting all the drywall up. Now, if Wade were writing this, and remember I mentioned at the beginning that it should be him doing this, he'd tell you about how the walls aren't plum (?) and how the plumbing was a mess, and don't even get me started on how much the electrical was run wrong....but, you got me writing today, and now you have a short story about the kitchen! We are in the middle of this tail right now, and so the pictures are from the beginning and middle. I can't wait to get 'end' pictures up! To be continued.....