My Kitchen Reno Updates
Life is hard; food doesn't have to be #120 [vol4, 2.3]
While living in a mess for 6 weeks hasn’t been exactly thrilling, it has been so fun for many of you to join in my joy on Instagram and in person. We are close to being functional. All appliances are on site (minor miracle post-pandemic). The electrician has a few more days of work. The plumber has at least a day more. My husband needs to install a vent through the roof. I’m sure there’s more I’m missing on the to-do list.
Where We Started
About this time last year we sold our house in Little Rock. When looking for a house in Louisville, our priority was to be close to the church (my husband’s job) and the cherry on top would be if we could find an acre or more suitable for gardening. We’ve lived in enough fixer-uppers to know that we are not fixer people so our preference was to move into a house that didn’t need work.
Welp, we found a house with 3 acres, close to church but the kitchen looked like this:
When we closed on our Little Rock house, we saved out a chunk of our equity knowing we would remodel the kitchen. We knew that moving, settling into a new city, job, school and church would be all consuming. We tabled the remodel for 6 months. In November we started looking for appliances and contractors. There’s up to a 2 year wait for some Bosch dishwashers - and I found one locally!
A random acquaintance at Christmas shared she used Cabinets to Go for her recent remodel, and had a great experience. John and I took a lunch date there one on January 3 and in less than two hours we were locked and loaded. It was incredible to take in our wall measurements, talk to a human, and watch her design our kitchen layout.
First Steps
We combined two rooms by knocking down a stairwell (below, pots are hung on stairwell wall.) The pantry on the far right was narrow and too deep to be useful. The hole in the ceiling is a former sky light that was roofed over so we had that filled in too (before screwing the dry wall in place the contractor asked if we wanted to hide a plastic skeleton inside. HA!)
For now we go outside to go downstairs. Phase 2 will be the installation of a spiral stairway to the basement. We snagged a beautiful one from FaceBook Marketplace for free! Wanting to be responsible, we needed to make sure we had enough cash to finish the kitchen before starting another major project.
Some of My Favorite Things
In our 23 years of nomadic marriage in ministry, I’ve lived in 13 kitchens (for 6 weeks or more). Not all kitchens are designed by people who actually cook. My husband and I spent time and energy dreaming and thinking about what were our priorities. And lots of lists!
Outlets - The modern kitchen cannot have too much electricity. From cell phones to appliances, everything needs to be plugged in. I have outlets:
on the walls above the countertops,
at each end of the island,
inside one wall cabinet where appliances will pull out in a drawer,
inside a drawer for cell phones to be off the counter,
inside a cabinet for the Kitchen Aid Mixer.
If you’ve not seen a Kitchen Aid Mixer Lift, feast your eyes:
Caroline is most excited about this and keeps referring to it as “her mixer.”
Lights - I’m 46 and need allll the light. We will have can lights in the ceiling and lights under the cabinets wired to a switch.
Return Air Vent - This seems crazy but I love this beautiful addition to our floor. The vent could have been re-routed to the wall but my husband went to the flooring store with the contractor and saw this gem. John stained it to match our floor.
Cherry Butcher Block - I asked on Instagram for opinions about butcher block. It was interesting: those who had it loved it, those who didn’t seemed scared of germs. I had a small butcher block before (see it pic above in front of stairwell walls) and was familiar with oiling it. The main reason we considered it was because of cost. It was $2,000 less than quartz for the island. We decided to go with the butcher block and if we hate it we can have quartz installed in a few years. I love the warmth it adds to an all white kitchen. Jury is out on functionality.
I’m sure I’ll share more details in coming weeks. The dungeon basement kitchen has been helpful, especially the deep sink. Have you ever washed dishes in a bathtub?! And I am ready to be in this new kitchen!
Life is hard, food doesn’t have to be.
Julie
PS - A new Beautycounter promotion started today. Get a free priming serum ($65) when you spend $125 it automatically adds to your cart. New clients can stack 30% off with code CLEANFORALL30 - this 30% off will end in February and likely not be seen again in 2023. If at checkout you click that you’re shopping with the PopUp called “Gimme Gifts” I’ll enter you to win the gifts accrued during this promotion. That’s a lot of details so just reply to this email with questions - or just tell me what you want and I can build the cart and send you a link to pay. I love helping people save money with clean beauty and this promotion is a good one.
Can’t wait to see it all done! Please keep me updated on the butcher block since that’s my plan as well.