The Kitchen

Remodel the Kitchen??  Why not?

Let me go on the record as being in the slightly hesitant camp for project: renovate kitchen.  While house hunting, we saw some truly appalling kitchens, all in the same price range as the house we bought.  For a while, I thought that we could get away with leaving the kitchen as is!  It was, after all, so much better than the other kitchens we saw...  

I mean, the kitchen functioned well enough.  The cabinets were not broken, the drawers fit most of the critically-important stuff, and anything else could be stored in the garage or the pantry or a bedroom...  Inventive stacking and a little bit of Tetris-style dish arranging served us well.

Aesthetically, it may not have been the loveliest of kitchens.  The cabinets featured a decidedly blah blonde-laminate finish, and a very blah (and cracked) Corian countertop, all which clashed with the salmon pink ceramic tile.  Mac and Grandma really liked the pink tile, insisting it was perfect for the islands...  I was never a fan, but I liked the idea of not having to deal with changing the tile, which seemed like an insurmountable project.  Considering the perplexing color scheme, I concluded that someone snagged a terrific bargain on tile and cabinets...  And given how expensive the house was for us, that someone was probably the original builder.

Why these colors?  Why?

But, that's just looks.  I mean, the important thing is function, right?  After all,  I could fit, if not quite access, most of our stuff.  True, I had to lie down on the floor to reach into the blind cabinets, where the bulk of our pans were stored.  Sometimes Josie and her skinny arms were required for this.  She was always eager to help!  Access problem solved.

Then there was the strange menehune room (the menehune are Hawaiian little people, somewhat like leprechauns, but less sneaky and more helpful), where we kept various items, including our trash and recycling centers.  Bumping our heads on the menehune pocket door opening was not the best of feelings, but the pain passed quickly.  The odd-sized pantry with shallow shelves and plentiful floor space gave me pause, but I just shut that door and could ignore the inefficiency.

The menehune room with a pocket door that we kept open usually, because this was our trash/recycling space as well.  The threshold was about 61", which meant that only one of our family (and the dogs) could go in and out without bonking her head.  Next to the menehune room, the Pantry of Wasted Space.

So, the kitchen was not the loveliest, to be sure, but it was tolerable.  

Until Grandma came to visit.  At which point she and Mac really delved into the "This Will Not Do" game which has spawned several remodels spanning all sorts of homes across America.  

First, Grandma was shocked at how close the sink was to the corner.  It was, in fact, right on the corner.  She was dismayed at the lack of space for multiple cooks in the kitchen.  She does love having other cooks in the kitchen with her!  Fond memories of cooking side by side with Mom... Wait...  Hmmm...

There is my menehune!  It does look a bit crowded in there.

Anyway, Mac's chief complaint was that the dishwasher, occupying the other corner of the kitchen space, was very inconvenient.  He couldn't reach across it to put away dishes, making his job much more difficult.  We're talking stacking dishes on the counter, closing the dishwasher door, then putting dishes away.  Tsk, tsk.

My chief complaint was that the countertop was incredibly awkward, there was not a good place for the microwave, and there was not nearly enough drawer space.  Once I got started playing "This Will Not Do," I could think of many things to change.

The seed being planted, then fertilized by several mild concussions from the menehune room, we started the planning phase.

Ah yes.  In this stage of the plan, I even read the articles about setting a budget, and avoiding change orders at all costs.  That wouldn't happen to me!!!  No Way!!!  Oh, my.  How young I was...

Part of my brain rebelled against the dire predictions of the project taking longer than anticipated.  I chose to ignore these warnings, in favor of blind optimism.  We had, in fact, planned for the majority of the work to happen while we were away on a trip to the mainland.  Ten whole days!  Imagine all that would be completed!  Yes, I just knew that I had outfoxed the system!

When we returned home...  Well...

Hmmm.  I guess it's progress...

Menehune room transformation to a built in wall oven nook, and awkward pantry transformation into humungous refrigerator nook.

Honestly, they had finished a lot, but it just wasn't quite as done as I thought it would be.  They had demo'd the cabinets, removing them and our appliances (except for the fridge, which we were still using) to our garage.  They installed a new window, and moved it over a bit from the tight corner so that we could have some more space in the corner by the sink.  They needed to cut a path in the ceiling for running electrical wires, which was a messy process.  They put up these nifty plastic barriers, with zippers down the middle to allow the workers to pass in and out.  Didn't take long until the kids decided that was a nice short cut to take.  The live wires hanging everywhere gave me pause, though...

Heed the sign...

Someone added me on this list.  As if the rules applied to ME too!  (I think it was Luke who added me!)

Meanwhile, life marched on.  The kids continued with school, Mac continued with work, and Luke and I continued the Year of Homeschooling.  The lack of a functional kitchen was a bit inconvenient, but we adapted.

The kitchen behind the curtain!!  Exciting noises coming from there!

Cooking center.  Microwave, coffee, toaster...  Do you REALLY need anything else?

The dining room table.  Breakfast is served...  (Just get your cereal from above the mini-fridge.)

And the dishwashing area.  Mac does NOT miss doing dishes in this sink...

At some point after we had adjusted to Life In the Living Room, a moving-truck full of cabinets arrived.  Where to put them?  The kitchen was not ready for cabinet installation...  So, into the garage everything went.  Taking up almost every square inch!

Eventually we were able to move some of the cabinets into the kitchen.  We had to, really, to make room for the delivery of new appliances...

WILD!  Two Tones.  Grandpa was getting nervous...

Menehune room cum built-in oven and added workspace!  Plus a BIG fridge.  That sucker is BIG.

Since we are not menehune, we are using the over-fridge space for pull out shelves to keep cereal.  Almost all of us can reach, at least! 

The cabinets were truly very lovely, except that the manufacturer on the mainland (everything comes from the mainland) totally messed up the custom pantry cabinet and the custom menehune-wall oven cabinet.  This delay held up the process a bit, since we needed to have them build the custom pieces again, and ship them over, etc., etc.

A giant pull out drawer?  Why?  For four gigantic trash cans maybe?  Anyway, not what we ordered...  Back it must go.  (We had actually ordered four 12" deep drawers, which work much better!) 

Hmmmm....  Can you spot the problem?  There should be two drawers and one cabinet, for what it's worth. They actually sent it this way, though.  No drawer, and one cabinet.  I suppose people order custom cabinets with big holes in the place of a drawer?

Having the cabinets mostly installed allowed us to make decisions about flooring, wall color, and backsplash.  Also, we could schedule the granite installation!!  Yeah!

The pink tile that was there before, compared to samples of the new Indian Red tile...  

For Posterity...  Luke left his initials where the dishwasher will be, using the new paint color we chose for the kitchen...   

And then we brought in the granite!  We chose the granite months before the project even started. We were looking for a granite that would work well with the pink floor tiling.  Having chosen the granite, we chose the cabinet finish and appliances.  All centered around coordinating with the pink flooring!!  Then, after all this work to tone down the pink, we ended up deciding to replace the pink tile.  The tiles were chipped, the grout was old and needing to be replaced, and I was never a big fan anyway.  Mac and Grandma loved the pink tile, but Grandpa sided with me.  Luckily, we liked the granite too, since having chosen a totally different tile, we didn't actually need to coordinate with the pink so much...

Ta-Da!

In natural light.

Flooring installation

We're getting there...

After the flooring in the kitchen was installed, the process slowed...  We were still waiting for the missing cabinet pieces, the plumber and electrician needed to return several times for various lighting and appliance installation issues, and of course we needed to decide on backsplash tiles!  Once tiles were ordered, we had to wait for those (to come from the mainland...).  The missing cabinets came eventually, and they got the pantry cabinet correct (4 drawers vs giant pull out trash thingy) but they sent something not even close for the other cabinet, as in not even the same color...  So back to the manufacturer for that one.  The undercabinet light came, but they were incorrect too.  Back to the supplier for that.  All sorts of little holdups...  Which added up to big delays.

In the midst of all this waiting, Christmas happened!  Katie was home visiting from college.  We were still cooking and dining in the living room, doing dishes in the garage, and navigating around boxes, storage containers, and random pieces of furniture in every nook and cranny.  With seven people and two large dogs inside much of the time, the living room became a bit cramped...  We set up the tree on the landing of the stairs upstairs, as that was literally the only place in the house where we could clear a bit of space.

Oh Holy Night...

Shaka photobomb.  

The girls! 

I think we know who had a case of the "Shakas"...

What could it be??

OHMYGOODNESS!  Exact same expression for every single item he unwrapped.

 I also got something nice for Christmas- some BLING...

Pendant Lights by day.

Pendant Lights by night!  Sparkly and Ocean-like...

Major Bling!  The menehune room no more-- now there is a fancy disco-backsplash!  Makes me smile! (The rest of the kitchen has a toned-down white subway tile, but you know I was tempted to cover all the walls with this!!)

But what about Mac?  Did he get anything for Christmas?

Merry Christmas to all!  Maybe he had to wait until a few weeks after Christmas, but doing dishes in the dishwasher in the actual kitchen was worth the wait...

So, the project began in the start of October, and was mostly completed by the middle of February. At the onset we thought it would be all finished up by Thanksgiving...  Nonetheless, having a larger kitchen is definitely nice.  But the nicest thing is having a kitchen at all!

Ta Da!

Another view of the kitchen all done!

Built in microwave!

Close up of the granite.  Lots of "action".

This corner gets a lot of activity.  The kids' snack drawer is in the pantry cabinet...

Before we could really relax and try to cook something again, we decided to tile over the floor in the living room to match the kitchen and dining room.  This meant moving all the living room stuff either into the garage or into the dining room.  So fun!

Clearing out the living room...  The fish tank was the hardest thing to deal with!

Good-bye pink tile.  I know that you will be missed (by a couple of people, only).

Redecorating the garage, again. 

And the dining room space.  It's not home if it's not cluttered! 

In the end, the tile looks great, I got Mac to paint over the ugly chocolate brown that I never liked in the living room, and we are adapting to life without major construction going on around us.  There is another job looming in the future, an addition project, but we will just pretend that we are all done forever.  It's so much nicer to live in denial!

To recap:

Before, we had a small kitchen with a special room for our menehune friends:

And now, we have a lovely kitchen with space for cooking and less risk of concussion...