I have such love for our remodeled kitchen that I'm thinking about cooking more than Lucky Charms for dinner.
Multiply that love by a million and you'll have the gratitude and love I feel toward my parents. They are machines. Six days of nonstop labor, ripping up the old and installing the new. My father is an engineer and unfortunately for him, can make any and all of my mother's decorative ideas a reality.
Here's what I've learned over the past six days:
When me, my mom or Apes hollered "Oh shit!," it was okay. My dad could fix it. When HE yelled "Oh shit!," he could fix it, but there was going to be a LOT more cursing.
Sometimes, when you measure appliances, the numbers aren't enough. You should slide the stove in between the cabinets before you molly bolt them to the wall. It'll save you a LOT of time. Trust me.
My mom gets nutty when exhaustion sets in. The woman took pictures of my butt crack.
My parents should host of their own remodeling reality show. They are hysterical and damn good at transforming spaces.
Check it out:
Here's what our OLD kitchen looked like (we were in the middle of clearing out the kitchen for the remodel. It wasn't normally this out of sorts. Normally...):
From the entry:
Looking to the right:
To the left:
Our front room held all our Whirlpool appliances and cabinets - for nearly a month:
It took all Apes had to deal with our living room looking like this during the remodel:
My mother, the speed painter:
Our friend Graham helped us to meet our seven day deadline. He did everything from electrical work, to insulation, to laying tile.
He also doled out huge servings of puppy love. That's our dog Jean Paul on the left and my parent's dog, Hildy, on the right:
The first cabinets hung (my dad installed under-mount lights in each of the hanging cabinets. Makes a HUGE difference!):
My mom, grouting our floors. I got her an icy-hot patch for her back. I didn't even expect anything in return...
My dad and April, shimming our cabinets so they were level:
Apes and her power tools (my parents gave her that saw. You'da thought it was a brand new car...):
I did a LITTLE work...
Apes was super excited to get to use her grandfather's jigsaw:
Stewart folded himself up and laid in the cat's bed...anything to get away from the racket in the kitchen:
Safety first...
He's exacting about everything. April would love to quit her job and follow him around for a year. She was totally his apprentice last week.
Big moment - the faucet gets put together!
The granite counter top (tile) is down, the back splash up and ready for grout:
Starting to come together:
The microwave goes up:
My mom pointing out a gap that needs to be fixed:
My mom noticing that I'm taking pictures for my blog:
A full page of math was necessary to figure out where to mount our cabinet handles. I'm not kidding:
And now, for the big reveal....
Here's what our kitchen looks like from the front entrance:
Looking to the right:
And to the left:
I KNOW! I KNOW! HOLY SHIT!
My parents rock. There is NO way we'd have been able to afford this same kitchen if we'd had to pay for labor my parents graciously gave us.
Somehow, in between all the kitchen madness, my mother helped maximize our living space and cleaned the house while my father tended to other projects like: fixing the front door, installing a can light in our stairwell, installing base boards in our living room and moving the treadmill.
The rooms that were a wreck a week ago, now look like this:
Mom and Dad,
Thank you for taking vacation so you could drive 13 hours and work your fingers to the bone for a solid week. April and I love and appreciate you more than we could ever articulate. We owe you. Again.
