When we bought our current house, my dear wife Sharon said that she would like to have the carpet replaced throughout the house and that she’d like to have a new kitchen. The carpet was replaced during the three weeks of work that we did on the house before we moved in. However, this past spring, Sharon reminded me that I hadn’t yet kept my promise to remodel the kitchen.Actually, I did start to work on the house last year. Our friend, Terry Sordelet, designs house remodels for a living. He had started to work on our kitchen (and “den”) remodel last summer. Now was the time to drag out those preliminary plans and to get together with Terry to finish them. So, during the spring of 2007, we met with Terry to design the new kitchen, to select cabinets, and to select the countertop.But why would I want to go through all this time and expense anyway? Short answer: Happy Wife, Happy Life. Longer answer: We (O.K. Sharon and the kids) spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Here were some problems with the old kitchen:
- The house was built in the late 1950′s. It was/is showing it’s age. The kitchen is small and it had very little countertop. It was frustrating to have two people in the kitchen at one time.
- The old stove was a tiny, wall-mount unit and the door wouldn’t even stay open. (Look at the cloth covered opening on the left of the first picture.) On our 25th anniversary, we splurged and bought a gas range with a convection oven. (Yea. I’m quite the romantic.) I had to modify the kitchen for it. I eliminated the countertop stove, cut out the countertop and cabinets, patch the cabinets to match the new opening, and run a new gas line. If you click on the picture to open it, you’ll see that the countertop and cabinet patches were only temporary.
- You could not open the refrigerator and the dishwasher at the same time.
- Everything in the house smelled like smoke when we moved in. Sharon’s dad covered the inside of the kitchen cabinets with B-I-N to seal the smell.
- Half of the cabinet doors would not close. The hinges were worn out. Don’t get me wrong. These are some cool Soss invisible hinges. I learned about them when I had to replace the (worn out) Soss hinges when I repaired my baby grand piano. But they are also expensive. I would spend a lot of money to replace them.
- The cabinets really were worn out. Look at the first picture. See the steam damage above the old stove opening?
- The cabinet handles would catch on cargo pants pockets and rip them.
I promised Sharon that as soon as my Summer 1 class was over, I’d start remodeling the kitchen. I went to work today. But tonight, I ripped out the old stove cabinet. The work has begun.
Images (L -> R):
- SW view of old kitchen
- NW view of old kitchen
- New stove in temporary location
- E view of the dining area. I gutted and remodeled this area several years ago.
- The new kitchen – a sample door, door pull, and countertop.
