Remodeling for the Design-Impaired

We’ve been talking about this remodel for the last six months.

We’ve paraded contractors through the house to bid on the project (while strategically avoiding having an architect draw up plans, because we’re only taking down one load-bearing wall…what could go wrong?!), and finally settled on one who just happened to be working on our friends house.

And then we stuck our heads in the sand for the next three months.

Why? It’s a dirty little secret, but we are design-impaired. I’m lucky that I can get my clothes to match every day (and sometimes I purposely make things clash so badly because then I can tell people I’m being trendy, rather than the truth, which is that I have no idea what looks good together). The thought of picking out cabinets, tile, countertops, backsplash, paint, carpet…and all having it look good made me cry. It really did. Like sitting down on the floor of the Home Depot and having a meltdown may have been something that happened. Probably because I hate the Home Depot more than anything, but also because I was overwhelmed.

Fast forward a bit and I found a picture of my dream kitchen in a magazine.



Our inspiration kitchen, sans the hideous backsplash.
And that mustard colored wall.



Success! Now I can just copy everything here. Except the backsplash. That backsplash is hideous. But, the net/net is that the design was done.

Except, joke was on me: we could literally not decide on a backsplash, or countertop, or tile. Even though I had a picture. A picture! Look at this picture, this is what I want, sales person! And yet, I could find none of it.

Head goes back into the sand, more tears. And now, threats (from me) of calling off the entire remodel because I just can’t get it together. And then Jason says “isn’t your friend Katie a designer?” And by god, she is. So we call Katie, and beg her to spend the day with us, which was a dicey proposition, because I was still on the verge of a meltdown about picking out materials.

But Katie was amazing. She wouldn’t let us go to the Home Depot to pick materials. She busted balls on a sales guy that wasn’t being helpful at the tile store. And she helped us come to a decision on everything. And I didn’t even cry.

But I did have a Diet Coke (there goes my sober chip).

Did we win the lotto?

Why did we decide to remodel our kitchen? It certainly wasn't because we are dot com millionaires. And to answer the title of this post, no we did not win the lotto. Despite that, we are going to go into debt up to our eyballs to remodel our kitchen. There are a variety of reasons why - pick your favorites:

·      Moorea finally stopped chewing on the cabinets and molding. She’s still throwing up from time to time on the floor, but so does Jason (eek! Is that making fun of him?!) so it feels like we can safely assume that the new cabinets will be left alone.

·      We live in a small house. The “showpiece” is the kitchen, because it’s so large. So if we’re going to hang our hat on that, it really does need to look nicer (or at least like the dog didn’t cut her adult teeth on it).

·      Our dishwasher is being a diva. In this instance, diva meaning not actually cleaning our dishes. So, we need a new one. And I want stainless steel. But therein lies the rub. All of our appliances are white. So if we get a stainless dishwasher, then that means I need a new stove, refrigerator and microwave. And what the heck – might as well add a built in wine fridge. Oh, so we might as well gut the kitchen and start over from scratch.

·      Once upon a time, we had an ant problem. Which, I will assure you, has been remedied. However, in order to remedy said ant problem, we had to tear up our kitchen floor. And they don’t make Pergo (cheap, fake wood) to withstand being pulled up. So, we have a lovely hole in our floor that exposes the many other layers of fashionable flooring that came before it.

·      I have always hated our kitchen. Jason will tell you that I am being dramatic and bratty and that we are fortunate to own a house, with a decent kitchen. But I hate it.

Take Two

This is my second go-around at a blog. Originally, I had a blog for about three days, where I more or less made fun of my husband (his words, not mine). In my eyes, I was showing people how funny he is, because I am constantly laughing about our interactions. But in his eyes, it looked like I was making fun of him, and not telling the stories accurately to boot, and the blog disappeared. Sad, really.

For my second attempt at a blog, I’m going chronicle our kitchen remodel. But really, that could get boring because some days there just won’t be anything to post about that’s worth posting. And I like to have the blogs I read updated every day, so what if instead, I tell you what I ate for dinner every day during the remodel? You’ll be appalled at my eating habits. Amazed that I don’t weigh 500 pounds. Bewildered by how content I am to eat red meat and potatoes for every. single. meal. And you’ll see our kitchen come together…and probably read some funny things about Jason (but not making fun of him!).



Here's a REALLY GOOD picture of our kitchen.
Featured in this picture are Moorea as a fat, fat puppy (note the head in bowl of water) and her pal, Roxy.
Even though this picture is circa 2010, the kitchen looks the same. But the dogs are bigger.