Resurrection!

I thought it might be fun to blog my kitchen remodel experience, so I decided to resurrect this blog (out of the five or six I'm currently ignoring) since it was the most crafty of all of them.

I've been feeling really unsettled and restless since my mom passed away in April, and I've been assuaging my grief with a lot of fun-but mostly unnecessary-shopping.  The big addition we have planned is currently on hold since Todd still has a job.  (Never did I think we'd be so keen for him to be unemployed, but here we are hoping that he get a pink slip, like, yesterday.)  I need a project.  Seriously.  I NEED a project.  Otherwise, I believe I shall lose my mind.  After four years of being a caretaker off and on, with the last year or so being almost full-time (and the last 7 weeks definitely being full-time), my mom's passing left me feeling very much at loose ends.  I think I spent the first month after she died just sitting around staring at the walls and wondering what I could do.  I've been spending way too much time at the mall and the outlets and online doing too much shopping, and I decided if I was going to spend money, why not do something spectacular with it?

We remodeled the kitchen about 10 years ago (maybe it's nine years...I can never remember) and I was never fully in love with it from the beginning.  It was definitely an improvement over what we had (we went from five cabinets to fourteen) but the cabinets were cheap, they had zero style, absolutely no function beyond a drawer and a shelf, and have I mentioned that they were ugly as sin?  (It doesn't get any uglier than the original white laminate cabinets with cheap plastic knobs and pulls.)  So yes, the remodel was a step up.  But it was still not enough.  More cheap cabinets, in-stock pre-cut laminate counters, cheap laminate floors...you can only do so much with that.  Five years after we remodeled, I got a whim to paint the cabinets because I HATED the oak.  Painted the walls a sky blue, finally put trim molding around the windows, added a window above the sink, and removed most of the half wall that separated the kitchen from the living room.  Progress, but still not quite right. 

This time around, however, we're going all out--it will be my dream kitchen.  (Well,  minus the $20,000 worth of pseudo-retro appliances I'm currently coveting, that is.)  I actually worked with a kitchen designer at Home Depot.  It is truly a perfect kitchen.  Gorgeous espresso cabinets, beautiful "moon white" granite counters, a 12x24 tile floor set in a funky pattern, and a real honest-to-goodness backsplash.  Plus we're converting to a gas stove.  After 19 years of cooking on an electric stove (and hating every second of it) I'm finally getting a 5-burner gas stove.  *fans self*  I'm so excited I'm sweating!  The cabinets, counters, and stove are ordered (and paid for, whew!) and now I'm making decisions on the smaller things like paint color, layout for the backsplash and floor tiles, and cabinet hardware.  I'm having the most fun ever!  I'm also driving my ever-so-patient husband out of his poor mind with all of my ideas and design boards and paint chips and granite samples and sentences that start out with, "So, I was thinking about the kitchen remodel..."

I hope you'll join me for this journey.  I can't wait to share our progress!