Boxes in, Cabinets Emptied

Our kitchen remodel will officially start this week, with the demolition of our old cabinets on Thursday and the installation of our new ones on Friday. We won't get the new countertops for another few weeks after that, and then the backsplash tile will get installed, but it's starting!

Yesterday our cabinets arrived, and they're kind of taking up half of our entire house.

The big corner cabinet in the front almost didn't fit through the door

So today I spent eight hours emptying out our kitchen cabinets and moving the contents into our bedroom, which is the only other room in our house. There are pros and cons to living in a two room, 650 square foot loft, and today I experienced both:

Pro--To move things to the complete other side of our place, I only had to move things about thirty feet
Pro--There were zero stairs involved
Con--There are no extraneous shelves, cupboards, or surfaces to use, since we already make maximum use of our space, so I had to use every nook and cranny available, which resulted in a bedroom that is covered in dishes, small kitchen appliances, frying pans, and cookie sheets, board game boxes, books, and an oddly high number of salt and pepper shakers (warning to all those about to get married: you will get a lot of salt and pepper shakers as wedding presents) and an unusable bed and a barely useable floor

As you'll notice, even though the "con" is long, there's only one, so I think that it about balances out. I can't imagine if I'd had to spend today climbing up and down stairs or walking down long hallways to move my stuff. Here are a few early shots of our stuff (as the day got longer, I got tired of documenting):

These are the books that used to live over our cabinets. They have temporary housing in the bedroom.

Now half of those books share space with our rice cooker, Cuisinart, and hand blender

The books made room for some of the cabinet contents. Some. Let's same a fifth.

Luckily, Greg, Paula and Bo are on vacation this week and T., Henry, and I are house/dog-sitting for them. It couldn't have worked out better, because if we wanted to sleep in our own place, we'd have to go horizontally on the bed to spoon with the ottoman, or sleep on the drop-cloth covering our couch, the couch that is smushed up against the t.v., record cabinet, globe, lamp, and end tables in the corner of the "living room" (a.k.a. the very small area next to the kitchen, which is also the place housing the giant boxes).

But the good news is that T. and I finished up (he spent all day at work de-installing the old show and installing the new show to be ready for Friday's opening, then came home and taped up what he'll paint tomorrow and tarped off the 300 pound bookshelf we can't move) and are now home at G&P's place; our bellies are full of pizza and beer and the giant television is keeping our tired brains happy with Office reruns and The Daily Show/Colbert Report tag-team. I got a little goofy with Trevor when he got home, since he was the only human being I'd spoken to all day long. I didn't even have Henry to keep me company, since he was at G&P's house with the girls. And talking and singing little songs to Henry usually keeps me sane, but not today, friends. No, not today.

And what was even worse was that I finished my audio book about 20 minutes before T. got home, and it was a great book--and excellent book--but kind of a sad one, so I'd spent a little time quietly crying to myself while relocating Cranium, Alfred Hitchcock's Clue, five versions of Trivial Pursuit (Original, Twentieth Century, 80s & 90s Pop Culture, Genius, and Baby Boomer editions), Scrabble, and about fifteen other board games.

So T. came home to a totally stir-crazy and slightly melancholy wife who was more than a little dusty and who had been standing still in the middle of the bedroom, hoping upon hope to find a place for her two cow-shaped creamers (one is small, like for a single afternoon tea, and one is large, for after-dinner coffee with guests. don't judge me.) and a stack of old photo albums.

But we did finish! Here's the result:

The last picture of our kitchen as we know it

You know what I really will miss, though. Our awesome, awesome tile.

Heeeyyyy, rosemary. You so pretty.

Yep, it's on the counter, too. Jealous much?

So goodbye, rosemary, sage, and basil. Hello smooth, green grout-less, spice-less quartz.

We'll keep you updated after the demo.