Remodeling a kitchen and a brain.

Do you realize that I have lived in my condo now for almost three years?? It seems like just yesterday I was chronicling my search for a condo on this very blog and writing about my brief panic attack the first night I spent in my new place. And now here we are, almost three years later, when being a homeowner is something I take completely for granted. Until something breaks. Then the reality of it all comes crashing back.

"Wait. I have to pay to replace your bathroom ceiling because my toilet was leaking? Fuck."

Around November of last year, I made a decision. If I was going to be a grown-up then dammit, I needed a grown-up kitchen. This also happens to be around the time I decided I would start cooking regularly and realized that my current kitchen situation was completely inadequate. The lack of storage was getting to be something of a critical problem, and the consequential stacking of all my cookware on top of my refrigerator was quite an eyesore.

So I decided that I would start saving my pennies for a kitchen remodel. Now we aren't talking a full gutting; I'm not getting any new appliances, and the floor and wall color are all staying. What is coming in are new kitchen cabinets and counter-tops.

Let me just say, this has not been as easy as I thought it would be.

I figured that by going to Home Depot I could do one-stop shopping. You know, I'd pick out the cabinets and counter-tops and they would install everything and there you go! Unfortunately, the cabinets are separately ordered and delivered through Kraftmaid, the contractor then comes in and installs them, I have to find a separate person to do the counter-tops (since the Home Depot contractors won't do counter projects as small as mine) and then the original contractor comes BACK and makes sure everything is a-ok. That means there's a lot of planning and organizing. But you know what? If there is one thing I am good at, it is planning and organizing.

Over the past two months I have been meeting with the Home Depot kitchen designer to plan my perfect kitchen. Everything was peachy until the goddamn condo association told me I couldn't take my cabinets all the way to the ceiling on one side and cover the forty year old non-functioning exhaust vent. And this was after I had called the city and spoken to one of their engineers who assured me covering the vent was fine as long as I had the permit.

Now let's just pretend I've gone ahead and ranted for like half an hour about the condo board, ok? I mean, it was obviously a huge pain in the ass, but I've reached the point where I'm kind of over it. Done. Finito.

So, it was back to the drawing board. I ended up with cabinets going all the way to the ceiling except for a two foot area in front of the vent. While it looks kind of goofy having one area of not as tall cabinets, I'm filling the space with some custom wine racks, so at least it won't be wasted space. And hopefully it will be more pleasing to the eye.

After a week of internet searching and asking people if they know any handymen, I found someone to cut and install my new counter-tops! I ended up going with a neighbor of my mom's who owns a handyman business and whose daughter used to babysit me. So, random. But all in all, it seems to fit in with how things usually end up. You roam all over looking for something and it turns out to be staring you in the face. Like me looking for the ketchup in the fridge and there it is, right in front of me.

The cabinets are being delivered Friday, September 11 and the contractor comes Monday, September 14 to install. So I have a month to prepare. Although we all know I'm going to end up running around the kitchen the night before madly trying to empty cabinets. It's how I roll.

Currently Reading: "Marked," the first in the House of Night series. I've been on a serious YA fantasy/vampire fiction role lately.

Currently Listening To: "Nothing Rhymes With Woman," the new Carbonleaf CD. Gotta prep for the Wolftrap concert at the end of the month!