Kitchen In Progress ...

Oh my house ... I have to say that I have a very definite love/hate relationship with my house. I love the way it looks now, almost 3 years and countless hours of blood/sweat/tears later, but I hate how much work it has been and the fact that we still have some significant work left to finish it before moving in the next 1-2 years. I went into this whole "buy a fixer-upper and put in all the labor and flip it when we move" thing a little too much like a deer in the headlights. I really did not know what I was getting myself into and had total trust in a very handy and handsome husband who had done this kind of thing several times in the past. We actually did not go into this whole thing with plans of monumental renovations--maybe a little paint here and there and laying down some carpet. That was all we thought it needed, seeing it as first time homebuyers a little too emotionally attached to the beautiful tree lined street and little red brick home. But as with most everything in life, we had no way to know what the next few years had in store for our little family in terms of Adam's work schedule, deployments, church responsibilities and my two little blond distractions.

We got into the home and decided that since we were carpeting the whole house, it would not hurt to scrape popcorn/texture/paint all of the ceilings which lead us to repaint all of the walls, some twice trying to find the right paint color to match the carpet (warm/cool undertones). We have redone all of the electrical outlets in the house and added 14 can lights(thanks PK). Adam has carpeted each room himself. We took the tile out of the entryway and glued wood floors in the entry and hallway--and then reglued all of the bubbles and places where the glue did not stick the first time. We have replaced all of the doors and door fixtures in the house. Adam and his dad put new subfloor in the upstairs bonus room before we carpeted. We have tiled one and half bathrooms and parts of the kitchen, installed a pedestal sink and beadboard in a small bathroom, and replaced a few windows. We had someone install a new fence around the yard and then drafted my mom to stain it in 103* weather this past summer (you can think of that when you are cold in Idaho, mom). In the middle of all of this, one cannot forget taking care of all of the little things that come up as a homeowner--plugged drains, broken water mains, leaking roofs, broken sprinklers, air conditioner problems and all kinds of toddler induced mishaps.

So when Adam got home from Kuwait in October it was time to tackle the room of all rooms in terms of our remodel--the kitchen. I lived with a navy blue kitchen for 2 1/2 years and was pretty ready to be done. It was clean, warm and filled with food so don't have much to complain about, but did I mention that it was navy blue. I am a huge fan of blue but for my favorite shirt and not my kitchen where I make my food and feed my family. We initially though that we could scrape and repaint the cabinets but eventually decided that our time was worth more--not to mention that fact that we are losing our motivation and enthusiasm for home projects--so we had someone build our new cabinets, someone else stain them and someone else install our counters.

That in no way means that we did not do our share of work on the kitchen. We did all of the demo, hauled the navy kitchen to the dump, scraped the ceiling, textured and painted the ceilings and walls, and cleaned the huge mess before getting cabinets (thanks to Phil for all of his help). After installation, the boys and I had to endure two days of staining fumes and toothless workers in our house. Adam installed temporary counters a few days later and finally got around to my range and microwave on Thanksgiving under threat of no food. The counters and sink came mid-December. Adam was then able to install the drains, disposal and dishwasher--hallelujah I'm a bum after washing my dishes in the backyard for 2 months. Just recently Adam hung the baseboards, door trim and ceiling molding while I did touch-up paint. So what's left: push all of the nails into the wood, putty those holes, paint the putty and stick a fork in it.

I am enjoying my kitchen--it is beautiful. I love the new cabinets. I love my range with an oven big enough for a cookie sheet. I love my counters. But most of all I love how it just feels good when I spend time in there. I think we did well but not without effort, and chunk of cash from our savings. HGTV tells me that dumping money into my kitchen will be worth it when we go to sell ... I guess time will tell. But irregardless of whether or not we get a great return on our investment, I have a beautiful kitchen for the next little while and appreciate it even more because of all of the work it took to get from here to there.

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