Kitchen remodeling is one of the most important jobs you will undertake when remodeling a home. It’s the one place where everything, and I mean everything, can and usually will be replaced and reworked.
When we did our cooking (see home page), we planned to be ‘out’ of cooking for 4-6 weeks; it took 4 months. We had plastic sheeting hanging over the doors to keep dust from taking over other areas of the house. It really was a disaster.
We cooked on an electric skillet, a hot plate, and the microwave (to reheat things). The coffee pot was in our bathroom. (Actually, we liked it so much that when we redid the bathroom, we had a space designed just for the coffeemaker and supplies, plus a small under-counter fridge. That’s definitely another story—check it out at Designer Bathroom.) We wash dishes in one of the bathroom sinks. The front bathroom was turned into the odd kitchen sink area, not a pretty picture and certainly not for the amount of time it took.
Meanwhile, the kitchen was slowly taking shape. Everything was ripped off and in the dumpster. Once we decided on the functionality and movement patterns, we went to work with passion.
The basic structure of the cabinets was made and assembled. We had decided that everything would be in the cabinets on the floor, with no cabinets to hang on the wall. The only exception was a large wall closet that had been a coat closet. That was divided into two sections. The upper one was a shelf for everyday dishes, glassware and glassware, and large serving pieces, with the lower section divided into larger drawers for the linens you need to feel civilized. Two felt-lined drawers were designed for silver pieces. Since this had been a closet, the closet was flush with the wall. You can’t imagine how well it worked. The interior design of the kitchen was becoming refined in fact and in fact. Since the kitchen was open and without walls, serving would be a delight and cooking a pleasure.
Anyway, once the cabinet frames were built they went into place and we placed the long folding tables on top of them so we could live with the location for a few days before putting the frames on. We did this to check the flow and feel of what we had planned. It wouldn’t work if the big plan of the space didn’t work as a room. It was hard to fake any of that, since there was no stove or sink. So without a functional model kitchen, we work the space anyway. We used boxes to represent the stove, additional ovens, as well as the sink and dishwasher. The children thought it was very funny.
Like I said, the kitchen remodel was long, hard, and messy, but I’d do it again in a minute. The rewards were greater than any of the difficulties we went through.