Home Remodelling -- aka Am I Nuts?

I think I would be better off living in a van down by the river than I am in ripping out our entire kitchen.

We've been at the new house for about a month now. Before we bought the house we knew it needed work and we were excited about that -- getting to pick out new colours and designs and updating the place into the home of our dreams -- that was something we looked forward to.

But once we got into the house we saw immediately that the kitchen needed to be worked on, like, yesterday. And we got to work putting together our ideas for a great kitchen (especially since the men in my family are chefs... real, trained chefs... who love to cook, and we turned down several perfectly fine houses because you couldn't fit four of them in the kitchen).

Anyway, right now the house looks like it's just been moved in to. The kitchen, obviously, was never unpacked save for a few bowls, plates, some glasses and the silverware. Our front parlour is filled to bulging with bins of foodstuffs and in the middle is all 200 pieces of the cabinets, shelves, legs, drawers, doors, hinges, and other assorted pieces of our new kitchen, still in the boxes. In some ways I'm a bit stressed when people drop by, because of the state things are in. But then I'm glad, as they'll see the before and after of the whole thing.

It's really amazing to find what you can live without, a lesson well learned, and one I won't forget. Right now I'm learning a new lesson: don't remodel unless it's something that really needs it. We have to replace the ceramic flooring, the tiled backsplash, the cupboards, the countertop, crummy dishwasher, and the bulkhead. We've had to push back the installation for a few weeks until we can rip out and install the flooring, which means I'll finally be -- and feel -- "moved in" sometime around Thanksgiving. But the whole kitchen really did need to be replaced, and so I'm willing to live with the mess and jaw-dropping inconvenience until it's done.

In the meantime I'm going to be making friends with paper plates and handwashing utensils. And with more of my new neighbours. They make the move and the renovations even more worth it.