The Eternal Renovation Project

House renovation is a long process.

Even longer when you're living in said house.

The one thing that keeps me going? That if we were doing this work ourselves, it would be taking even longer. Costing less? Maybe - I'm not even sure I could say that. The emotional cost would be much, much higher.

It is all wearing on me. The constant clutter, the noise, the lack of order. The chaos. The cost.

Not to mention the very ugly kitchen. It is small - too small for my liking - but I think I could live with that if it weren't so outdated. It is hard to keep clean - it is so very difficult to motivate us to keep things tidy. We can't fit everything in the cabinets, so we're already three steps back. Factor in the ugly cabinets, the chipping, peeling floor, the burned countertops and the ancient, breaking down appliances, and you being to understand just why, why we hate it so much.

It's all changing. Today we ordered the new cabinets. Zinn! Zinn! I feel so light when I type that word - the Zinn cabinet people are changing my life. Trust when I say it is so much more than just cabinets - they are truly altering the way I will see my kitchen and my food preparation for ever more.

And it cannot happen soon enough for me. When we moved in, all of our 20-plus-year-old appliances were functioning, albeit barely. We are slowly losing them:

- the built-in microwave quit
- the garbage disposal no longer works
- the oven does not heat up properly
- the burners on the stove may - or may not - work properly
- and - new this week - the dishwasher leaks. It was already borderline functional - the dishes must essentially be scrubbed prior to loading, and it is installed on a slope - the racks slide out on their own when the door is opened. Be there to catch them or watch your dishes end up on the floor.

This leaves only the refrigerator working as it should.

Lest you think I complain too much, here are photos of our barely functioning kitchen. Please note disarray on countertops - there is nowhere to put this crap. And no incentive to do so.



View of the stove, standing in front of the tiny bathroom. Note the non-functioning built-in microwave, along with its counterpart, the new microwave, which now takes up valuable (non-existent) counter space. Note, too, the "vintage" look of the appliances - late 70s? early 80s? Either way, it spells N-O-T-W-O-R-K-I-N-G.



A close-up of the microwave; it is completely broken. It was a space-saver before space-savers were cool. The door handle is broken. The kids were outraged that there was no popcorn button - I suspect this microwave predates microwave popcorn by some years.



A view of the sink. I actually love the windows here (hard to see, but they are kind of cool, and we will likely, at some point, make the side windows into casements). The dishwasher is wretched (see above). The sink has one deep side and one shallow - how are you supposed to wash dishes in that thing? Countertops hold all the appliances that will not fit anywhere else. The cabinets are only about 30 inches tall, but we have nearly 10-foot ceilings. Wasted space. They are also ugly, a minor detail that was probably not lost on most.



View from the sink of the tiny bathroom. The behemoth of an island takes up any floor space that might otherwise exist. But I can't rip it out because without it, where do I put the rest of our stuff?

The back wall will disappear - the new addition is behind it. And here is what our kitchen will look like (more or less) when we're done:





No, we will not have blue cushions on our barstools. Nor will we have light blue countertops or green floors (it's just a computer rendering). But you get the idea - think hickory cabinets with antique bronze bin pulls, dark granite countertops, and stainless steel appliances, slate floor and slate backsplash. Undermount stainless steel sink. Walls in a terra cotta color. Pendant lights over the bar.

Patience. It all requires patience. But the reality is getting closer.