My Third Kitchen

I have realized that part of the thrill of home ownership is the fact that you own the home. Profound, I know. However, the delicious part of that, to me, is to my darling, a nemesis - because it means I get ideas that cause me to want to knock down walls and cut out doors at will, which as most of my family and friends know, I insist that my darling do. I would do it myself, but I am famous for just mis-measuring things by an inch or less and I am not as proficient with a sawzall as my firefighter husband is (And now that we speak of it, this project I missed by 10 inches, because it was never measured! Luckily it was in our favor, which usually it is not!). Now our latest project, and we have had quite a series of them throughout the history of this latest home ownership, has been our kitchen. You see, I cook - alot; Often three meals a day (except just recently I have managed to coax the hubband into taking over breakfasts when he is off - oh happy day), and our kitchen has always been awkward. It also has been redone - once. So this project has been referred to as my third kitchen. It will be my last, I hope. There are no more walls to move - a true bummer, but I still have the rest of the house!

The worst part of remodeling? The dust. I think I cleaned my cabinets out at least three times and finally gave up - it still needs a final round, but I am tired! It got so bad that I made The hubband install plywood behind the fridge and microwave and designed in a bit more granite for the wall, just to avoid the dust that finishing 10 square feet of sheet rock would create. We have almost completed our little project. All we have left to do to finish is the toe-kick, all of the trim, the deck, the soffit, the windowframe paint, paint on our red wall, the railing in the Lego loft, the lighting over the sink, the wall in the living room, the door paint, the laundry room wall... I know, you are wondering why we say we are almost done, but what would life be if we didn't have at least five tasks per project half completed, leaving us with something to do in the winter months? And the reason the Living room and laundry now need attention is due to the fact that the new kitchen door used to reside in the living room wall (it had taken place of the fireplace and chimney that the hubband and knight 1 knocked out years ago), and the door to the laundry, which I had dad and the darling chop out a few years back, needed to be closed off. Like i said, Home ownership is a beautiful thing!

Anyway, I love my new kitchen, all light and airy with loads of countertop space, an island the kids love to gather around, nearly everything in a drawer all properly put away, and a pantry cupboard in the kitchen, so the laundry isn't doing quadruple duty anymore, just triple duty! We all Love, Love, Love the results! The princess's new favorite place to play now is sitting on one of the island stools (the knights informed me they shouldn't be called bar stools as I won't be serving them beer) playing with my ceramic WSU coasters and beaded candleholders creating quite the sculptures, every so often demanding milk or food. And so I shall post some pictures!

Note the Door in the Background - Shown here in the Living room, but now moved into the kitchen. The boys, being quite industrious one year, planted around 100 seedlings, of which only four survived to production! We didn't bother with seedlings this past spring. This picture was taken two springs ago.

Notice the huge amount of junk on my counters - wait til you see the new pics! I have several progress pictures of this same corner, the NE corner of the kitchen.

Gotta love that work space accommodated kids at least!!

Here is where my beloved family is working as a team to bring to fruition, a larger, more spacious kitchen. Knight 1 and the Hubband are ripping out the porch in order to convert it to interior space, while my dad, inside, works on fixing the wiring issues. He came over for a week and added numerous junction boxes - the bonus? we have only blown a circut once since his appearance in July, rather than the almost daily occurence that it had become. In the winter, blowing a circut was a drag as the circuit breaker board is in a most inconvenient location - outside!

The old porch, now framed in and a large opening for the door that is relocating from the living room. The Tyvec is hanging over interior door openings in an attempt to limit the relocation of free, floating mounds of dust. It really didn't work, and it didn't keep the cats out either!

Old cabinets gone, new ones being installed. the NE corner for reference.

The new island, sans countertop.

Helping the big Daddy with hardware installation,

Ain't it pretty so far? Love the windows~

NE Corner - Isn't it lovely? Notice the lack of appliances and other debris on the surface? Just didn't have backsplash yet - a long story, but turned out well for us - That part of the kitchen was free!!

The Island, oh and see the plywood below the new microwave? And note the door and it's lovely window! There will be a deck out there soon! It is currently under construction!

There you have it, Our project that has kept us from travelling the majority of the summer and fall - well, now it is sports mostly, that keep us from travelling - Knight 1 is playing football and Knight 2 is playing soccer, but we can leave that for another time!

See you soon - oh say in about a month!

Kris