Timeline of a kitchen: We purchased this place in 2002. It is a really cool God-story, that I won't go into right now. You'll just have to trust me. The original kitchen had old vinyl flooring that looked like bricks--no, that was in the other house. This kitchen had dusty blue counter tops, (and I know that was God dealing me some cards), dark burgundy walls (not kidding), dark Mediterranean cabinets with heavy pulls, and a border wallpaper around the ceiling that was big, gold-edged diamonds colored hunter green, navy, burgundy. Uh-huh. Not making this up.
Two walls had dusty blue counter top at desk height, with glorious fluorescent fixtures above as task lighting. Not really sure if this was eating space or homework space. There was an island with a butcher block top, which was nice. Icky side-by-side refrig, cooktop and double wall oven.
We did not unpack into the cabinets, at all. Not even going there. We were sure we were going to be redoing the kitchen pretty quickly. (What a bunch of morons we were.) We bought a bunch of white laminate bookcases and lined them up along the walls and unloaded all our goods, food, dishes, you name it. The cabinets sat empty. I didn't even clean them out.
We ripped out most of the upper cabinets and moved them gleefully to the garage, for workshop storage. They were not cheap cabinets, just ugly and out-of-style. We ripped out about 3,500 pictures of kitchens from magazines and taped them up, everywhere. Inspiration at every turn.
We did pay a contractor to come in with a glue-lam beam to replace the wall that separated the kitchen space from the laundry area, which also had a full bath (shower stall), and a door to the adjacent breezeway. The workmen had to go down into the crawlspace to put in a pier to support the beam at the dining room wall.
"Um, Mrs. P." they said. "We're pretty glad we're putting in this beam for you, because your load-bearing wall isn't sitting on anything right now." WHAT?! "We can see the upstairs floor sagging in the center right now, as we're jacking the beam into place. Bet your kitchen floor will spring up too."
The builder had moved the entire load-bearing wall over about 6" from the original blueprint in order to squeeze in a cold-air return. :)
We did replace the big window over the sink that fall, and made it even bigger. On the very day we did that, in fact the very hour that the window was removed, the farmer to the south of us harvested his beans. I still remember standing in the kitchen with my mother as the Wizard-of-Oz-quality cloud of soybean dust came at us. There was absolutely nothing we could do, but duck, and then vacuum.
The bathroom (now in the kitchen space), had rough-sawn cedar siding as wainscot, a shower stall, toilet, and a slop sink. It was the only shower we could use that first year. And there wasn't a heat vent in that bathroom. My MIL swore she could smell marijuana in there. We started calling it the stash bathroom. We took the girls over to Grandma's once a week for a bath in a tub, with heat. And then, I got pregnant that winter.
Spring came, and I confessed to my friend Needa, that we weren't going to be able to get to the kitchen after all. Not anytime soon, anyway. So she organized a corps of devoted friends and they came out to clean and paint the place. (I did pull down the wallpaper about an hour after we moved in.) Their workday ended up being the actual day I delivered #3, although it wasn't planned that way.
They painted the walls light yellow and the cabinets a brighter yellow, at my request...to brighten things up. We all knew they were painting finished wood, and it wouldn't last forever...but it was cheaper than Prozac. The blue countertops were to force me to find joy no matter my circumstances, for the next eight years.
If only I had known that reality tv would become so popular, I would have started back then, documenting the insanity that has become our life. Today, when I looked around, I actually started crying that the house looks like Sarajevo, from more than one direction. I was laughing while I was crying, but Handyman had to agree.
A few weeks ago, we wanted to replace one little window, on the back wall of the kitchen. We have owned the window for several years, but never had replaced it yet. We hauled it down, and pulled off the siding to frame in the new opening. But of course, the band board, 3 feet below was rotted on the foundation. And you can't build window framework on rotted wood; and of course, this particular band board extends for 20 feet underneath ancient decking that was installed by the Romans.
So, to replace the window required a trip to Menards with the dump trailer, to pick up a new 20' board, that is treated for exterior use. Then ripping out the ancient decking to expose the band board's full length...which also has a 4x4 post sitting on it, that had already been wrapped in fibercement trim, which will now have to be redone as well. And cutting an opening into the family room wall, at floor level, in order to get the bandboard into place properly. (This little opening provide the entrance for "Zeus" later that week.)
I suppose the big chasm in the deck provides a little security from burglars trying to enter from the east side. They would fall right into the possum nests, or be attacked by feral cats. The Romans would be proud.
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