Mt. Pleasant Classical Academy

Our kitchen remodeling has begun!! Finally. It is about time. I should rephrase that first sentence; the execution has begun since the demolition began 5 years ago. That’s right. Five, long, years ago. We had moved into our new-to-us-7yo-home, DH had completed remodeling the laundry room—installed his new cabinets, new closet, new baseboard,… very nice, and when asked what the next room was on his list, he replied; “The Kitchen”

“Really?” I asked. “How soon.”

“Right away.” he replied.

“So, I should start taking off the trim boards and wainscoating, and the wallpaper!”

“Yes, go for it.”

I’m demolition queen. It is always my job to get out the crowbar and destroy the old. I enjoy it too. Very rewarding and by that evening 5 long years ago all traces of the old, ugly stuff was gone. Well, except for what was hiding behind the computer desk.

Well, some other projects came on the docket, and when we started discussing the kitchen again we soon found ourselves in the midst of a ‘camel with his nose in the tent’ story. I disliked the counter-tops and wanted them changed. Mauve is just NOT my color. Here’s the counter-top as it stands today.

DH disliked the cabinet quality and wasn’t interested in putting new counter-tops on such awful cabinets. I decided that if we were going to install new cabinets that we should change the layout just a bit. DH agreed and added that we should also change around the lighting for the room. And if we change the layout then the floor needs to be changed. When Hillary came to visit and we shared our tentative kitchen remodeling plans he added; ‘the problem with the room is still the window. ‘It has too much white and not enough glass.’ Of course! He was quite right and DH soon had installed a new window in its place. When we started discussing our window we also realized that the kitchen’s French door left much to be desired too. The engineer didn’t think through this door design one bit since when the wind blew, which is quite frequently here and with sustained speeds of 30mph, the door was pushed away from the weather stripping. Some days you could fly a kite next to this old door (HA, 7yr old door!) it was so drafty. It also had quite allot of white space and not so much glass.

DH replaced the window with this huge unit, and patio door. Here’s a present photo of our narrow kitchen from a day I was doing lots of cooking in the kitchen. DH also installed the window above the patio doors. It has tons of light which I like but it is awkward to work in for more than two folks. There actually is not enough space to walk around the island if someone is standing by the sink. 30″ of space is not enough.

Oh, and the smoky kitchen is what happens most every time anyone cooks something in the oven. It is going too, and an exhaust fan will be installed into the new kitchen. To light the stove a match is always needed.

But for 3 or 4 years now I have waited for the project to move forward. DH decided that his workshop had insufficient space for building kitchen cabinets so the new garage / workshop had to be built. That was last summers project.

And today is the day. DH is in the kitchen cutting out the old pantry’s frame and soon my new pantry, the first cabinet system DH has built for our new kitchen will be installed.

But there are a few things that need to happen before we can move this new, custom built unit into place. Geez, it was quite an engineering feat to just move this unit off the sawhorses and onto these roller dollies. I can’t wait to see how it comes into the house from the workshop.