There is nothing like news of a pregnancy to really throw your well laid plans of a remodel into hyper-drive. Yes, those two crossed lines on that obscene white stick looked order (which previously reigned supreme in our household) right in the eyes and gave it the bird. Now our sad little cottage more resembles a fun house: left is right, up is down, the living room is now the kitchen, there are giant, curious holes where once a wall stood, the mirror is even spewing back horrid, skewed images of me (oh wait that is just the pregnancy wreaking havoc on my body!)
We realize that this behavior may seem shockingly abnormal to those whose first instinct is to clean, organize, and feather their nest for their new little hatchling. Oh, in a perfect world. And yes, part of our remodeling plans do include a nursery, but to be honest my very first thought when looking at that confirmation of our unexpected fertility was: We really need a dishwasher! So Mr. promptly ordered a 30 yard dumpster and took a sledgehammer to the pink formica that we inherited with our little old cottage. What a good guy.
It won't be as easy as a little kitchen remodel though. No, those of you who have been crazy enough to attempt this sort of thing know that one thing inevitably always leads to another. So remodeling the kitchen also means that we get to rewire the whole house (long story), new flooring on the main floor of the whole house, new paint throughout, new molding throughout, new, new, new (whew my head is spinning). And though we may wake up next week and wonder if this has all been one big terrible mistake, for now we are excited (or is that just the delirium from sucking in all this plaster dust? That's Mr. not me, I'm safely ensconced in our plaster-dust-free bedroom watching old re-runs of
Kingdom - oh I do love Stephen Fry!) and fired up for our new dishwasher...er...kitchen.
Later I'll share with you the plan, but for now here are the before pics...
(Above)This is what the kitchen looked like on our last walk through right before we signed our names on the dotted line. And yes, we agreed to an all pink kitchen. That's pink cabinets, pink countertop, pink walls, pink ceiling, pink drapes, and ... pink carpet. Shocking, but true.
The breakfast nook before we moved in.
View from the breakfast nook before we moved in.
(Abov) This is what the kitchen has looked like for the last two and half years. When we moved in we knew we would eventually rip out the kitchen, but we felt it was important to live in the space for a while to really figure out what worked and what didn't. So we did what we could to make it livable for the interim: painted the cabinets white, the walls a light beachy sand color, spray painted the old knobs black, and removed the pink carpet (seriously, who installs carpet in their kitchen??!!)
View of the breakfast nook.
(Above) In this pic you can see the remnants of the bathroom remodel. See where that lovely unpainted drywall is? That used to be a closet that opened up on this side. We closed it off and opened it up on the other side to create more space in our small bathroom (you can see it
here). You can also catch a tiny glimpse of the new full light wood door we installed last year.
View from the hallway.
View from the dining room. Remember when we redid the
dining room and I told you that wall that you see in the foreground was coming out? Well...
It's gone! Along with everything else! It only took Mr. (by himself!) a few days...and all is primed for the transformation.
Stay tuned for a full play-by-play. I know... I know... I've been absent from the blog world for a while (blame it on the baby) but now I am hoping that I am beyond all the pregnancy yuckiness and into the "blissful trimester" so I'll be around to bore you with all the gory details!
The next step? Plumbing and electrical...
