My Long Overdue Kitchen Remodel

I adore cooking and baking.  I love trying new recipes, creating my own, and preparing tried and true meals.  With this comes lots of cooking and baking accoutrements.  I also collect lots of antique and vintage china, pottery, and glassware.  Add all these items to a small and poorly designed kitchen and it pretty much creates chaos.  I freely admit that I am part of the problem too - I am not exactly the most disciplined person when it comes to organization.  I need to have a place for everything - and well, I just don't.  At least not yet...

We moved into this home about 3 and a half years ago knowing that the kitchen didn't meet our needs.  However, expenses including a new roof, HVAC system, a custom built chicken coop, and a handful of unexpected appliance replacements came first. I waited patiently and finally it is time!

We started this project in late April.  It is slow going as we are doing the bulk of the work ourselves.  Since the husband has a more than full time job and really can only devote time on weekends, it is slow going.  I just keep telling myself it will all be worth it.  Slow and steady wins the race, right?

My husband and son taking the initial shots demoing the wall between the kitchen and little dining room.  My son's face was priceless when we told him he can hammer a hole in the wall and even draw on it with a permanent marker!

Because our home was built by the previous owners with a couple of additions over the years, the original kitchen and dining room were relatively small. They share a wall and have a pocket door between them.  The original dining room was so small that I actually used it as a storage room of sorts.  We have a second spacious dining room in the addition on the other side of the kitchen.  After much consideration, we decided the best way to improve the function of our kitchen without adding another addition, was to take down a wall combining the kitchen and small dining room to make a larger kitchen and walk in pantry.

What a difference removing the wall made!

The dining room side had a wood floor.  It was relatively easy to remove with a crowbar.  This was my job.

The kitchen floor was tile on cement board.  Removing it was very hard work, but my husband muscled through it.

In my next post, I'll tell you more about my design plans and the ongoing progress.  As of this writing, I am totally without a kitchen.  It isn't fun, but I'm trying to stay positive and keep my eyes on the prize.  Cooking and baking are my stress relievers, so not being able to do it, has been especially challenging for me.  Assuming everything continues to go on schedule, 14 weeks will be the entire duration.  Yes, I said FOURTEEN weeks.  Ideally it would have been 4-6 weeks, but when a remodel is mostly DIY (and you basically have 2 days a week to get stuff done) - this is what you get. Regardless of whether you use a contractor or not, no remodel can really go fast enough while living in and through it.