So I did. And I figured I’d write about the amazing things about my new kitchen that I am SO thankful for. Our kitchen renovation was a BIG job. I don’t think I’d ever tackled anything so intense, except maybe childbirth, lol. Even the 2007 living room renovation paled in comparison to last summer’s big kitchen blitz. We and some folks from our church rebuilt everything on our own– electrical, plumbing, heating system, insulation, drywall, flooring, cabinets and counters, and appliances. Whew, it was a very intense year. In case you missed all the tremendous fun from last year, you can check out some of my blog posts here.

Here are 10 things for which I am very thankful.

1. We’d gutted the kitchen and dining room to the bare bones. I am thankful for that because I’m a rather fussy person. I don’t like to inherit another person’s “disaster.” Old houses are almost never disasters– old houses are exceptional in that they are solidly built with superior craftsmanship and quality materials. In this, they have new construction beat. However, the common “disasters” that strike an old home is usually sub-par remodeling or neglect. My house has suffered from both, but especially from terrible “remodels” in some of the rooms. Much of my turmoil comes from fixing previous remodels. So I like to gut the walls and start from scratch. I don’t like patching up previous owners’ disasters. And I also like to see exactly what’s behind the walls. I’m still looking for those gold dubloons somewhere.

2. I am thankful for my dishwasher. My daughter and I STILL give thanks regularly for it. We used to wash loads and loads of dishes by hand. When I used to babysit kids, I was washing dishes for ten people three times a day.

I got a cheap dishwasher, too– the kind without the electronic panel and no fancy features. I’d heard that fancy dishwashers break easily. I got this cheapo model in case it died early– then I wouldn’t feel so bad if it broke on me. But it’s been going like a champ. And we LOVE it.

3. I am thankful for my vinyl plank flooring. My first choice was hardwoods (whose isn’t?!) but it was too expensive and I didn’t think I could install something like that myself. So I opted for easy care vinyl plank flooring. It really is very easy to take care of, and doesn’t look too bad!

4. I am thankful for my kitchen window. I love this window. It’s so big, more than twice the size of the previous window. I can see the entire backyard through this thing. And when I open it, all the breezes come in. I love the woodwork and the pendant light!

5. I am thankful for my wood countertops. I bought them online and had them delivered, can you believe it?! 350 pounds of countertops! Laminate might have been a little cheaper, but it would have been too much work to custom make it to fit my large space. The wood is just so wonderful. I am just starting to relax a little about the countertops. Before, I was rather hyper about any scratch or swelling. But now I’m not as fussy, because if the wood gets a scratch or swells, I can simply sand it down and recoat the surface with oil.

6. I love my dining room.

7. I am SO thankful for insulation. Maybe that sounds kind of weird, but if you have ever lived in an old, uninsulated house, you know exactly what I mean. The insulated walls make the house so, so much more comfortable. I can’t wait to have the upstairs insulated.

8. I am thankful for new electric. For several years, we had no electricity in many of the rooms. After we gutted the living room in 2007 and saw the condition of the 100-year-old knob-and-tube wiring, I disconnected it for fear of fire. We were without electric in the kitchen except for a small ceiling light and one outlet. It was a pretty miserable room to be in, so dark and ugly.

When we gutted the kitchen and dining room, I wired new electricity throughout the house. I also wired Ethernet (and considered a cell booster, but stuck with the wiring for noe). Of course, in some of the upstairs bedrooms we only have one working outlet and a switch-operated ceiling light, but it’s one NEW outlet and a NEW light operated by a switch (before, the ceiling lights were pull-chain, ugh). I am very, very thankful for our new electric. I sleep so much better at night now.

9. I am thankful for drywall. I adore the inventor of drywall. THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU. There are some “hard core” old home owners who install plaster and lathe in their homes, but not me. Plaster is dusty, dirty, ugly, it cracks, it’s lumpy and bumpy and did I say it’s dusty? It also smells. :-p I like my drywall.

10. I’m thankful for my new cabinets. They cost me a verrry pretty penny, but I love them. They are solid plywood. Beautiful doors. I love the color and they are so durable.

Can you believe I’ve counted to ten already?! I could keep going on and on!

In case you’re wondering, this is what the old kitchen looked like.

Now you see why I am so thankful.

It’s rather easy to see only the things that go wrong when you have an old house (mostly because things are always going wrong in an old house!!). But there’s a lot of marvelous benefits to living in an old home. And I am grateful to have a home. I shudder when I remember apartment living!

10 Things About My New Kitchen I Am Thankful For

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!

So anyway. Clutter. I still don’t have my little phone and Internet station yet. All these small projects take a lot of time! You wouldn’t think so, but today I got the following little projects done:

Scraped the old caulk and re-caulked the floor where it meets the tub (to prevent leaks through the floor from overly exuberant bathers)
Drilled a coat hook in place
PICKED UP THE HOUSE for the 100th time
Cleaned Livvy’s food area (she’s such a slob)
Searched for my turkey roasting pan
Cooked dinner
Wrote articles and tweets
Deposited money in my account (best thing I did all day)
Went shopping for coffee creamer, bananas, etc
Went to home improvement store to get shelf materials
Made goals for kids’ school week
Folded laundry
Made phone calls
Scored kids’ schoolwork

And that’s the stuff I can remember!

Anyway, because I am so busy all the time, doing a million different jobs, it is imperative that I be organized. If things start to become unraveled, my projects become unraveled. And right now, the kitchen organization area is a disaster. Hats, gloves, keys mail, pens… UGH! I have been mulling over a solution, and I think I finally found it.

An organizer. These things are neat! I spotted a nice one at the department store today, but my eyes popped out at the price. $50! Holy cow! That’s extortion for a cardboard wall-mounted organizer! I went home and promptly searched for a sale at Buy.com. This is a very nice one. It’s a Gadget Smarts Faux Leather Personal Charging Stand. My husband is always forgetting to charge his phone. I had a place for him to charge it, but we moved it because we have to fit the heater in that area. I must make sure his work gear (pen, ID badge, keys, phone, baseball hat) are all perfectly organized, or he just throws his stuff on the kitchen counter. And I hate things on the kitchen counter! So I think this organizer will do very nicely. Kudos once again to Buy.com!!!

Organize Organize Organize

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!

Our "mudroom" is just a small corner by the laundry room. I am ALWAYS cleaning it up.

I did not want to use up precious space in the kitchen to make one, either. I figure I will eventually rebuild the decaying back stoop into a small mudroom, next year, hopefully. It will be unheated, but it’s better than nothing. The space is very small, only about 5 feet by 5 feet, so storage will be premium real estate. I’m currently looking at our habits, and looking into our needs, so that when the time comes to build the thing, I’ll know what to do.

One very good idea for a mudroom is lockers. Yes, those old school lockers. They are perfect for storing tons of stuff: gloves, hats, coats, umbrellas, sports gear, maps, everything! What a phenomenal idea! It’s difficult to find lockers locally (WalMart does not sell them!) unless you know that some school is selling them or giving them away. And how often does that happen? I did find an online retailer that has lockers for sale. They have a nice selection. Besides the typical metal vented lockers (that I would find rather tacky in a residence), they have some very elegant wood ones, and some cool-looking European-style kinds. The prices aren’t too bad (typical furniture pricing for the wood lockers), but the selection is outstanding and the store allows you to buy large units or single lockers. So it’s a nice choice.

Coat hangers are another necessity. I can’t believe how many coats we have “hanging” around! For everyone, there is at least a spring/fall jacket, a nice winter coat, and a work winter coat. Plus we girls have sweaters and etc. That’s quite a number of coats. :S I need to find some way to organize things better. Because right now, my small hooks in the kitchen are buried with coats.

Anyway, organization and storage is a MUST for the mudroom. I’ll be doing some research over the winter, and by spring I’ll see what I’ve got (just in time for the mud season).

The Mudroom Problem

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!

The thing is huge, and weighs perhaps 20 or 30 pounds. I was no mean feat hanging this sucker. Because there is no central stud on this wall, I had to cut open the drywall, insert a block of wood between the two flanking studs, and patch the drywall back in. It took about 4 days (spackle had to dry, we had to repaint the area, etc etc). But FINALLY, it is up! I absolutely love it.

It goes with the kitchen design so well, has that bronze-y finish and an “Old World” feeling. It matches the ceiling fans exactly. Now all I need is some custom mugs and a few nice shelves to make the area perfect!

Below the clock will be a long mantle-like shelf. My iPod dock will sit on it. Yes! We got an iPod dock! My Hubs picked it, and it is really high-quality. I’ll have more on that, later. And oh yeah- under this mantle shelf will go a heater… whenever we get those installed. The forecast calls for flurries on Friday! I’m a little nervous because the basement window is still not filled in, and we have no gas lines for heaters yet. :S Both The Hubs and I have been totally swamped at work, and have absolutely no free time at all. *sigh*

Couldn’t Wait…

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The island is a big one, on great big casters. I cut a portion of the butcher block countertop slab to fit on it. Originally, I was going to use a simple table, sheesh maybe slap together wood from tv stands or something, or maybe construct a table of my own, using the butcher block as a tabletop. But as the renovation dragged on, and my list of Things To Do grew larger and larger, I decided to shell out the bucks and get one. I bought this island at my local Bargain Outlet (a chain of discount materials here in the Northeast). It cost a heck of a lot of money: $240. For that amount, I expected the materials to be first-rate and the instructions to be a breeze.

NOT.

The instructions were TERRIBLE. We had to take it apart three times due to poor or missing instructions. And the material is “OK.” But one of the stiles had been obviously cracked during manufacture, and had been glued together at the factory (in China).

We love the island– the concept of an island– and we made new parts of sturdier wood to make this work. So I don’t intend to complain about the island, per se. I just expected a lot more for my money. I wouldn’t recommend this particular island (it’s “Sunnywood”), but I do recommend the style: a big box of shelf boards with cabinet doors, and a sturdy wood countertop. We love our kitchen island for this. It also helps to direct traffic and keep passers by out of the work area. AND it makes a terrific barrier with which to play hide and seek with Livvy.

New Kitchen: The Island Workhorse

Original eloquence at New York Renovator.com. This content is copyrighted, so no stealing! Don't make me angry, you don't want to see me when I'm angry!