Too Much Information: 2024

Christmas Eve started with one of our favorite traditions: breakfast at IHOP where we leave as big of a tip as we can. This year I was super late to get it organized so only one family from the neighborhood could come. So I started inviting family members and ended up with a pretty big group! It was fun and we left a tip of over $600!

Turned out that our server's mother had died on Christmas Eve a year before so it felt like it was meant to be to have her as our server.

This year was an "off" year for us meaning all of our kids were elsewhere. I was worried it would be a depressing sort of Christmas so kind of at the last minute I talked my family into have a Christmas Eve party at my house.

We did potluck, games and enjoyed each other's company. Everyone seemed to have a good time and I was SO GLAD we did it.

We introduced the family to "dip, dip, dip" and it was a big hit.

It's really hard to capture in pictures though LOL

We even had some gingerbread house building but this is the only picture I got of that!

The cabinets. This is the biggest ticket item by far and I wanted it to be right.

Here is the original kitchen:

I found this kitchen to be dark and depressing. The garden window was badly broken and we replaced that fairly early on. The backsplash was not my style. Many of the drawers didn't work well.

Kitchen after I painted the perimeter cabinets and removed backsplash tile:

I put headboard as backsplash as a temporary measure, knowing I would replace it someday.

All of my painting looked good and lasted quite well for over 9 years!

Things I didn't like: gigantic island with floating chairs/step up below it, cabinets that end below the ceiling, horrible floor tile. Things that were ok but would need to change: microwave location, chipped countertop, sink with small and big side with disposal, upper corner cabinet that is hard to use.

I was afraid to lose a lot of drawer space and some cabinet space when I make the island smaller.

Years ago when I was dreaming about this project, I had visited a local cabinet store (more than one actually). But a specific one seemed really good quality and they even gave me a tour of their manufacturing facility and explained everything really well. So in the back of my mind, this was the best place but way too expensive. So everything I looked at, I compared to this place.

As I mentioned before, I had a designer help with the fireplace. She then said she could help me with the kitchen and picking out lights and stuff so we had a cohesive look. She did some preliminary drawings and I did already have a pretty good idea what I wanted. But I was just not sure how to fit things in and what the best layout would be.

Things I knew I wanted: a big island but not as gigantic as the one I had now, NO built in chairs, double oven, cook top, drawers instead of cabinets in the island. Keep fridge and dishwasher since they are not very old and work fine. I wasn't sure how I would like a single sink but I did like the look of them. I also wanted to do a shiplap ceiling treatment in the kitchen. (I kept this one under my hat for awhile in case Frank thought it was crazy)

The designer brought me some drawings. I wasn't loving the layout exactly..some small, weird cabinets and I would have to have a smaller oven due to space constraints. The local place had made me some drawings and also put some weird stuff in there (open shelving over the fridge??). I was afraid I couldn't get what I wanted.

The thing that sort of kept bugging me in the back of my mind was that the designer was giving me these drawings but she was clearly working with a cabinet place to get them. Any cabinet place will do the design work for free. So as we were tweaking the design I just wondered in the back of my mind who was doing the cabinets? She finally had a day when she brought over a cabinet person who did some measurements to make sure the design was going to fit. I questioned this person about how the cabinets were made and who was making them and what the quality was...and I just wasn't satisfied with the answers. They had no samples to show me except a small door sample to show the colors. I just couldn't get past the quality issue. If I'm spending a fortune on cabinets, how do I make sure they aren't crap? They kept saying things like"these are good cabinets! We put them in million dollar homes"

Anyway, I felt just uncomfortable with all of it. partly because my designer had worked with this unknown cabinet place with the assumption that I would buy from them. The design wasn't exactly what I wanted and they also made me feel like I couldn't really have a normal looking vent hood: No room. I had all these compromises.

I fretted and worried over every single step of this remodel so it is no surprise I'm sure that I was suuuuper stressed over this.

I ended up taking some basic drawings to the local cabinet store just to see how close in cost they would be (fully expecting a huge discrepancy). They had already made some drawings as I mentioned but I had a better idea now of what I wanted so we sat down and did a redesign. Somehow they fit more cabinets and told me I could get a full size double oven. I really didn't understand how that could be but I was hopeful. Turns out they are European style cabinets with a frameless design making them more roomy inside (thus fitting a bigger oven). The quote came back slightly cheaper than the other cabinets!!

So after much fretting, I emailed the designer that I wasn't comfortable with the other cabinet place but would pick my own place. She was super nice about it...I mean, as Frank kept pointing out, I am paying her to design. I didn't owe anyone else anything. She really liked one of the door options the other place had and was sad I could't get that but for me it wasn't as big of a deal. But I'm no designer.

So I finally bit the bullet and signed up to get my cabinets made. I chose white perimeter cabinets and a blue island. The designer helped me pick the color though she wanted to go more gray and I was vehemently against any gray. We compromised on a nice blue.

Once we had picked a cabinet place, Frank became quite antsy to just pull the whole kitchen out. I was trying to keep it in as long as possible to make our lives less crazy. He just hates waiting! So we ripped it all out. Of course, he did most of the work but I was helpful hauling crap out of the house.

We set up a little kitchen area in the pantry. Put the table in there as well as set up the toaster, microwave and griddle. It was tight but it worked.

I was still so nervous. I doubted they could make a hood vent the way they said they could. I doubted that everything would fit within my current footprint. I doubted the double oven big time. They sent over a guy to do detailed measurements before beginning the construction of the cabinets and this guy was SO GOOD. He used laser levels and measured everything to the millimeter. He pointed out things in my design that I could change a little to make things better (they were all really good suggestions). He showed us exactly where the new island would be. Frank and I were so impressed and he made us feel completely at ease like we'd made the right choice.

We had the oven in the middle of the living room at this point and the refrigerator moved around as well as they did floors and such. Mostly we had everything in a big jumble in the middle of the living room with walk ways for the fireplace guys to work around. It was a disaster area.

To accommodate the double oven and the cooktop we had to move some electrical around and add some as well. We also added lighting above the island which wasn't there before. We were lucky to find a family member (Josh's cousin?) who is an electrician and could work around our time constraints. He was awesome.

Before they brought the cabinets the manager came do a final walk through and make sure the plumbing and electrical were right. We actually had to move an outlet at the last minute which Frank was not happy about but luckily he is very handy and got it done.

March 4, 2024 Cabinet delivery day! They stacked them all over and I just stared at them in awe.