Kitchen Pics

 

All these pics start when we were already had taken the center wall from the house, and are taken over the course of several weeks.  Above, the peninsula is out, and Chad is demolishing the bulkhead.  And yes, we are great parents and kept Aijah there for a few minutes.  eek.

 Then we had to take down ALL the sheet-rock.  Chad and yours truly on duty.  This is where all the loads to the dump came in.  Piles and piles.  Where the dark couch is, there used to be a wall, from the far edge of the couch, to the metal wall.

 This was the kitchen for a few weeks.  That range wasn't operational.  The fridge was in the garage for weeks.

This is a few weeks later.  The main "kitchen" had been moved to the living room for another few weeks.  

 Some cabinets in.  New fridge actually in the house.

 

Here is the "cooking station."  Griddle, which Dakota would try to lick clean if I didn't keep the plates turned over.  Ug.  Toaster that only works if you still a rice-cooker spoon in it (thanks Miss Congeniality for the idea, worked like a charm).  Garbage and recycle.  Little dresser for towels, utensils, and a bread drawer.  Chad was living off homemade burritos and sandwiches in his lunch.  Mostly, things that could be packed in a baggy he could throw away, so I didn't have more dishes to do in the bathtub.  Several weeks without a kitchen sink.  Only a week w/o sinks in general.  Brushing teeth using the bathtub just feels wrong.   The place we got the granite, has a special deal where you get free granite for your bathrooms, minus install cost....so ofcourse we took advantage of that...but, just more to do on top of it all.  Then when the granite was in, it made everything else look bad, so I had to repaint the bathroom.  Then the windowsill was terrible, but I noticed all the sills in the house were bad, so might as well do them all while the supplies are out.  

 Finally, a kitchen-ISH.  A sink!  A SINK!!!!   A range!!!!  No more griddle.  During our weeks of griddling, I did manage to make soup in a pot on top of the griddle, but oi, we'll pretend it didn't take an hour.  A pot on a griddle only gets to about a medium-low heat.  Torture. 

Getting there.  At least the kitchen is very usable at this point.  So lovely!!!  So excited to get bar stools, and have floating shelves.  Still have to install, backsplash, pendants, rangehood, appliances, floor and some more.  Always more.  More, more more.  But honestly, we're over the hump.

OH MY GOSH.  Talk about your life being turned upside down.  This has been a challenge.  It has been 2 months.  I'm finally starting to feel like myself.  It just stinks when a big part of your life, (cooking for everyone in your house) turns into total chaos, and there is this constant project hanging over your head, and there is only so much you can do, there is only so much other people can do at certain times, and on and on. 

Somewhere in the middle of it I told myself, well, if I work REALLY hard on the rest of the house during this, then the whole house will be in great shape when this is done.  Bad idea.  Then I went even more crazy, feeling like there was too much to do all the time, and basic needs of every one were getting neglected.  So, I had to pull back and say, life is just gonna be about taking care of each other during this situation.  I don't need to be adding more to the plate in an effort to gain more order in other parts of the house.  Let's just focus on this right now.  So, we started doing more fun things, and went on some adventures, and the house just was a disaster.  That worked for awhile.  Then, the disaster was overwhelming.  People would stop by to see the progress of the house, and it would be a  embarrassing because of the mess.  Piles of various projects here and there; piles of floorboards, piles of items from Jerry's, dishes everywhere, Jet's robots everywhere, furniture in weird places, baby playpen and exersaucer in the middle of the living room etc. 

Needless to say, my life the past 2 months has been all about, what else do we have to get done?  What's next?  What do I have to get ready?  What do I have to clean?  What to I have to get out of the way?  This weekend, I couldn't even relax very well, because I've been in this constant, MUST-GET-STUFF-DONE mode.  But yesterday, after I got most of the whole house clean, and I was able to make a meal for my family, and take a shower and stretch and have fun with our kids, I felt great.  I remembered what it's like to just live like I used to.  It also helped reading my old blogs.  They helped me remember how I was before all this.    Oh yeah, I used to be fun, and not a stressed dorkwad.  I was so glad that I had written those blogs.  It feels so good having this project coming to an end.