I Boiled Water Today!

That may not sound like bloggable news to you, but it sure is to me!!

We haven’t been able to boil water on the stove in FOUR months. Today was the day, baby! It was like getting new toys, I tell you what!

In case you have no idea what I am babbling about– we have gutted our kitchen and dining room, and are slowly restoring it. It’s been nearly four months since the plaster and lathe was torn out. It’s been a loooooong four months. Yow.

Well, we got the stove hooked up today. It was quite the adventure. In an old house, nothing is level, nothing is predictable. We had to drill a hole up from the basement to snake the electric cable to the service plug. Yeah, rrrright, JUST drill a simple hole, right? I’ll spare you the painful details, but we finally got it after trial #3.

So the son boiled water and boiled some edamame for us tonight. It was SO good. I stuffed myself with them.

Thank God, things are starting to come together.

Only One More Month???

Egads. I knew renovating the kitchen would be tough. I remain in shock at just HOW tough it’s been. Still, we’ve waited SO LONG for this moment, so I am grateful it’s finally coming to pass.

Since we have completely gutted the room, the opportunities abound. Of course, there are limitations to some of my decisions. For example, I can only place the stove along one side of the wall, if I want a range hood ducted to the outside. I don’t like having the stove there, but I really have no choice, unless I want to do extensive framing and ductwork (which I do not).

And all the while I plan and prepare and order supplies and demolish and rebuild and plan some more, I have to run the household, pay the bills, work my jobs, and still find time to work in the miscellaneous stuff like researching life insurance quotes online and calling the power company to ensure we have enough gas pressure to add some space heaters…

It’s a LOT if work. A LOT!! I am amazed at how much work this is. Wow.

But I cannot wait to have a dishwasher. I can’t WAIT to have REAL ceiling lights, a big window, new cabinets and counters, new flooring! To have INSULATED and clean walls!!!! Oh I will be so happy. Here’s praying we get this all done in one more month. I don’t know if I can last much longer beyond that, lol….

A Good Kitchen…

… is everything to a cook. Really. I have had some really, really bad kitchens. Most of my apartment kitchens either had no countertops, or had a tiny one of 3 feet long. I can’t believe I was living in an apartment with FOUR young children and using a kitchen with a 3-foot countertops and two cupboards. Wow, lol.

Well, we’re redoing our kitchen in our home, at last. And while it’s SO GREAT to be finally renovating the kitchen, it’s very hard to be living here without a kitchen while doing it. We have no kitchen sink. We have no storage space in the house (the basement floods and there is no attic in the house)… it’s surprisingly tough. I’m a pretty tough gal, I can take a lot, so I thought. But having no kitchen is really, really disruptive. And it’s not disruptive just for cooking– it’s hard emotionally on the family. Basic stuff like morning coffee or dinner together is totally turned on its head. Wow. I thought I was prepared for this, knowing how renovations can cause stress, but this is pretty wild! Even my blogging is severely affected– my posts are more terse, less humorous, less frequent.

Still, I’m so happy to finally be getting this done. All this demolition and construction work is quite the abs workout!! Once the plumbing is in and the electricity is in, and the first floor is insulated, all the hard stuff is done. All that will be left is the upstairs– the simple stuff like walls and floors. Whew. I can’t wait til it’s all over.