"As long as that wall is open..."

I'm sure there has never been a home remodel during which that phrase or something very similar hasn't been uttered. It first happened the other day while Nathan was staring into the attic, which is completely exposed to the kitchen. He was dreaming of the skylight he has dreamed about for years. Turns out that dream is dead (though we are still determined to put one in our living room some day -- we even made sure the solar panel installers left room....).

I said it again when looking around the living room and thinking about lighting and landing strips and realized the living wall opposite the kitchen could use a sconce or some other light fixture...

As it turns out, that's not going to happen either, thanks to budget constraints. But there's always room for dreams...

Before...

So here's the deal with our kitchen: some chuckleheads who owned the house before us ruined it. There used to be a door between the dining room and the kitchen; who would want one of those? thought Mr. and Mrs. Chucklehead, apparently.

There are two drawers. TWO.

You need a head lamp and one of those grabber thingies to get items out of the back of the floor cabinets. See, drawers and high cabinets are difficult to make and install, and Mr. and Mrs. Chucklehead are lazy, in addition to being dim.

Pantry? Also superfluous.

I guess when we bought the house I didn't see all the problems with the kitchen because I didn't really cook. Today, of course, I have to cook, cause kids cost money that we used to spend on eating out. I won't go over the whole saga about why it took us seven years to finally get to this point, but happily, along came James, a stay-at-home dad for the past year who is looking to get back into construction and did a small job in our back room before we decided he could do the kitchen. He's giving us a good rate on the labor because, he says, we're helping him get back into the business.

The kitchen's only good points are it's large size and the fact that it's almost square, so no pricey custom cabinets are necessary. Still, this is all going to cost us more than I took home in a year as a reporter.




No, that isn't some kind of camera trick, the floor tiles really are that ugly.