Final Countdown

The Big Kitchen Remodel will start in less than 24 hours, and I'm sitting here breakfasting on a concoction which we shall simply call "random things in the pantry and fridge thrown together and now I don't have to worry about moving them out of the kitchen", fighting an urge to spend the next 2 hours looking at sock patterns on Ravelry since that sounds vastly more appealing than moving everything out of the kitchen and laundry room.

Let's take a look at some of the kitchen features to which we shall be bidding adieu.

(Yes, I have crud all over every single counter top while I'm moving stuff out. It's a mess. But it isn't like the clutter is taking away from the inherent beauty of the kitchen, because it was a dumpy room to begin with.)

Double wall ovens, original to the house. The top one doesn't heat correctly, the bottom one's door doesn't work correctly.



Hmm, that picture turned out blurry, so you can just barely see the lines drawn on the wall above them. That marks where the new wall will be. Because this house was designed back in the day of small refrigerators, so when a contemporary refrigerator was brought in, it became almost impossible to get in through the back door.



To the left of the ovens is the pantry, featuring HEAVY sliding doors that fall off their track. Also, as with all doors of this type, you can never really see what's in the middle of the closet.




The smooth top burners. If you know me, you've heard how I feel about these. If you haven't had this conversation with me, if involves the letters L, O, A, T, H, and E. The previous owners installed this and were mighty proud of it. I consider this proof that they were whackadoodle.

Also, if you are tempted to leave a comment such as, "hey, I have one of those and I love it," please realize that my opinion of your mental faculties will instantly plunge. Just so you know. (And I know some of you will find that an irresistible challenge, and now feel compelled to comment that you like them whether you do or don't. Hah. You're not fooling me. I KNOW you're not that dumb as to really like them.) (Ami, I"m looking at you.)



Loud dishwasher in which the protective plastic coating is coming off the prongs so that it leaves little brown spots on all the dishes:




Also, check out where it's installed -- that cabinet to the left is utterly useless with this set up.

And this gives you a shot, too, of a decent upgrade -- someone had all of the cabinets professionally painted. The originals look like this:



(These cabinets are in the wet bar. This house has not one, but two wet bars. Wild parties? Fear of being more than 5 feet from a sink? Who knows. They're both ugly, but they'll have to wait their turn for demolition.)

The paint certainly brightened up the kitchen, but unfortunately it chips.



Cheap kitchen sink, approximately 6.5 inches deep. Complete with cheap kitchen faucet that has some sort of crud permanently crusted on:



And, finally, the entire work area is topped with a dropped ceiling, bringing the ceiling height down to 7 foot. The lighting? Fluorescent tubes ensconced in flimsy plastic panels. The only task lighting is over the stove top. That hood, by the way, doesn't vent to the outside, in spite of the fact that it's on an outside wall. Weird.



That wood piece in the upper right corner of that photo is where Rick and the contractor knocked a hole in the wall to see if there were any weird wiring issues they'd have to deal with. There aren't. They blocked it back up so the cat didn't spend her life trying to figure out how to get up there in the ceiling.

On the other side of the room we have the kitchen desk



which we never use because we have a computer desk in the family room. Also, this desk has no task lighting, making it even more inconvenient. Check out the shelf above it -- cheap board held up with cheap metal brackets. I'm betting that was installed by the same people who picked out the smooth top range top. Idiots.

So, back to work clearing stuff out. Also, I need to mow the lawn, and I promised to take the kids to the pool since it's the only warm day this week. I also said I'd take them to the library, but that will wait until the weather is crummy and we're trying to escape the racket of remodeling. Which should be sometime tomorrow morning.