Progress

While I've been far removed from all the chaos, our kitchen is slowly returning to some semblance of useable space. Don't get me wrong - it was awesome to see all the crappy parts disappear in a matter of days. But there was also a scary realization that we no longer have a kitchen! Obvious I know, but since I haven't been there to see the reshaping take place, it just kind of hit me. I'm relying on the pictures and videos my husband brings on the weekend to remind me that at some point we'll be able to live in our house again.

Our house is small. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, living room, dining room, KITCHEN. Now our house is more like three bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a giant space that includes a dining area, a living room area and a kitchen area. This renovation has drastically changed our home and I haven't been there since five workmen walked in with the intention of tearing it apart. Add to that the multitude of decisions that I've had to make from afar and it's enough to drive you just a little nuts. I thought we did our homework and made all the necessary preparations, but I was wrong. Any seasoned renovator would probably tell you to expect that issues will come up no matter how much prep you do beforehand. What I've learned is that even when you prepare and even when you expect things to go slightly awry, it is still extremely stressful.

The biggest hiccup in our process so far has been the floor. We have hardwood throughout the house with the exception of the kids' bathroom and formerly in the kitchen, both tile. The logical decision for the floor in the new kitchen was wood so it would flow seamlessly from the existing living area as we took down the wall dividing the two rooms. The key word here is seamlessly. The problem we ran into is that the existing wood was glued down so when they took out the wall, they had to cut some of the floorboards. This meant that more flooring had to be pulled out to find a smooth edge to start adding in the new floorboards. We had to order more wood than planned and in a short short short time. Basically here's the equation we were left with:

We need this now + the place that can actually get it in time = $$$$$

Thankfully we had saved unexpectedly in a couple aspects of the job so far, so there was money available to allocate to ridiculous shipping costs for extra wood. So much for doing our homework. To fuel the fires of our stress even more, the flooring that showed up was darker than the existing flooring because of a little thing called the sun, which had faded our floors over time. Big sigh. After a lot of strategic drawings last night, we managed to carve out a plan to integrate the new wood without there being a strong line of demarkation. It's not the greatest picture, but I think they did a pretty good job making it look like we did it on purpose. See for yourself.

The old floor before the wall came down and the newly integrated floor with both old and new wood.

 It's looking a lot better than it was a week ago!

SO... we're heading in the right direction. We go home in a few days and I can't wait to see it with my own eyes!