Now that the major demo is over, some real decisions have to be made. Pinterest can only take me so far. On Friday we discovered that our original plan for the chimney style vent won’t work – the exterior vent runs into the a lower roofline on the back of the house. Bummer. That means hours and hours of research trying to find a solution that is within budget. We received the final costs for the cabinets with the continual upgrades that we keep adding…..and then take off. The good news is that Jeff will still get his dovetail cabinet drawers. The countertop costs came in above the estimate, but again, we added a bit of counter for a beverage bar that we’ll love once it’s done, so when I’m cooking out of my budget cookbooks for the rest of the year, I’ll only have myself to blame. Understanding how everything is priced out can be a bit confusing, but since this is not HGTV, we’re learning how this works in the real world.
The first full weekend without the kitchen was both rough and refreshing. The stress of the renovation hit me hard as I looked around and realized that there wasn’t a single space in the house that wasn’t somewhat destroyed. Dust everywhere, junk everywhere….I wished Bob would bring back the dumpster and I’d fill it up with the rest of our stuff. I spent Saturday in denial and took the kids to a friends house for most of the afternoon, but Sunday I took control. Laundry, kids bedrooms, vacuuming, and most importantly, reorganization of the living room to make it more livable. It’s a good lesson to remember for future renovations – where are you actually going to LIVE when it’s happening? (Without tripping on legos, elsa dolls, and the dishwasher, of course.) Three borrowed air filters from a friend also improved both the general air quality and my overall mood. I made some good progress that felt even better when I got home on Monday night.
Bob the Builder was back to clean up the rubble. He had left all the paper on the floor for us as our weekend assignment was painting the ceiling. We’re not putting much sweat equity into this project, but we wanted to have some skin in the game, so all painting is our responsibility. It’s the least we can do. Walking in to actually see the plastic curtain pulled back and our original floors felt pretty good – and a lot cleaner. There is some floor repair that is going to happen toward the end of this week to fix up where our wall and old lowers used to be, but then the cabinets will go in early next week and everything will start coming together. Until then, we’ll just wait for Amazon to deliver another huge box that contains our range vent. Amazon Prime has seriously paid off for this project…we also picked the sink from Amazon!
99 cookbooks 