It has been a while since I addressed this blog. Many days were filled with physical therapy after knee surgery. I am doing very well. At the very least, it is much better than it was before the surgery.
In the past few weeks I have begun work on my kitchen. It has been a long time in coming. My late husband and I always intended on moving the kitchen to the addition and moving the Living room to the large space created when I removed the wall between a tiny corridor kitchen and the dining room. I have been in my home 11 years now. I finally had to come to terms with the fact that I am never going to move that kitchen.
My present journey began when my son, a contractor in SC, gifted my daughter with 2 gallons of tinted Kilz primer. She had recently completed her painting and passed these cans along to me. I stared at those cans during several weeks of physical therapy and, at some point, I decided that instead of merely painting the space, I would “give up” on the idea of moving that kitchen and redo it to the best of my ability.
Once I made the decision to “fix” it where it is, I felt as if a great weight were lifted from my shoulders. There is no money for contractor or building materials and I knew I would rely heavily on ingenuity, creativity, and my experience as an interior designer and space planner.
Kitchen remodeling is no laughing matter. More than any other project, even bathroom remodeling, kitchens put great stress on the family. Through the years I have listened to couples who bicker with each other and the contractors throughout the process. If the marriage is strong enough to make it until the beautiful end, everyone is happy again and overjoyed with the new space.
In my own case, as in many others, my project caused upheaval in the entire house. Books, dishes, pots, small appliances, and much more have to be relocated to accommodate the work. My own dreaded first step, before I could do anything else, would be to move the books from the dining area. I would need to take those shelves apart and repurpose them for kitchen storage.
The books in the dining room were predominantly composed of fiction and double shelved. (Two rows of books on each shelf.) I had already removed 1000 books and donated them, but I was going to have to let go of a lot more in order to find space for what I decided to keep.
I won’t go into the gory details, but I finally kept only what would fit on the living room shelves. Meanwhile the books already on the living room shelves had to be moved and purged. This meant the children’s books in the sun room had to be purged. Do you begin to get the picture? In the end, I let go of 3000 plus books. Unless you are a bibliophile, like me, I don’t believe you can understand how painful that process was. It did give me an opportunity to dust each book with a soft paint brush. With my physical limitations, this process took 2 whole weeks! The living room is finally back to normal; the sunroom remains a hot mess.
Tell me about your remodeling experience.
KMJ
In the past few weeks I have begun work on my kitchen. It has been a long time in coming. My late husband and I always intended on moving the kitchen to the addition and moving the Living room to the large space created when I removed the wall between a tiny corridor kitchen and the dining room. I have been in my home 11 years now. I finally had to come to terms with the fact that I am never going to move that kitchen.
My present journey began when my son, a contractor in SC, gifted my daughter with 2 gallons of tinted Kilz primer. She had recently completed her painting and passed these cans along to me. I stared at those cans during several weeks of physical therapy and, at some point, I decided that instead of merely painting the space, I would “give up” on the idea of moving that kitchen and redo it to the best of my ability.
Once I made the decision to “fix” it where it is, I felt as if a great weight were lifted from my shoulders. There is no money for contractor or building materials and I knew I would rely heavily on ingenuity, creativity, and my experience as an interior designer and space planner.
Kitchen remodeling is no laughing matter. More than any other project, even bathroom remodeling, kitchens put great stress on the family. Through the years I have listened to couples who bicker with each other and the contractors throughout the process. If the marriage is strong enough to make it until the beautiful end, everyone is happy again and overjoyed with the new space.
In my own case, as in many others, my project caused upheaval in the entire house. Books, dishes, pots, small appliances, and much more have to be relocated to accommodate the work. My own dreaded first step, before I could do anything else, would be to move the books from the dining area. I would need to take those shelves apart and repurpose them for kitchen storage.
The books in the dining room were predominantly composed of fiction and double shelved. (Two rows of books on each shelf.) I had already removed 1000 books and donated them, but I was going to have to let go of a lot more in order to find space for what I decided to keep.
I won’t go into the gory details, but I finally kept only what would fit on the living room shelves. Meanwhile the books already on the living room shelves had to be moved and purged. This meant the children’s books in the sun room had to be purged. Do you begin to get the picture? In the end, I let go of 3000 plus books. Unless you are a bibliophile, like me, I don’t believe you can understand how painful that process was. It did give me an opportunity to dust each book with a soft paint brush. With my physical limitations, this process took 2 whole weeks! The living room is finally back to normal; the sunroom remains a hot mess.
Tell me about your remodeling experience.
KMJ