step one.

I guess there were several steps that preceded step one but, yesterday we completed the first step to officially get our kitchen remodel underway. After spending months researching our options, we finally decided on cabinets and appliances.

To back track a bit, we struggled between modifying our existing cabinets and replacing them all together. The original cabinets are solid, custom, and still in good condition. On the negative side of the chart, they make no sense. Each cabinet holds about half as much as it could because of the way the doors and supports are placed. There is way too much wasted space. Pictures wouldn't explain this so just take my word for it! After drawing out plans to modify our existing cabinets, it was clear that there would be way too many structural changes (we can handle the cosmetic changes). And since we're doing this ourselves and on a very limited budget, paying a carpenter to make the complicated tweaks wouldn't make sense when we could buy all new cabinets a reasonable price. So, after more research (that's putting it lightly) we purchased our new cabs yesterday. They are scheduled to be delivered this week so we will share more details once we get them and move onto the next step.

Part of our hours days weeks months of research included laying out a plan that would leave us without a functioning kitchen for as little time as possible. An average day with a 15-month-old is chaotic enough and I dont expect living in the middle of a construction site to help very much. Once we demo our existing kitchen, we want to have everything lined up to be able to put it all back together as quickly as possible. For that reason, we also ordered our appliances. They can be delivered whenever we're ready for them as long as we give the company a day or two notice. Again, after studying all options, we went with a full suite of Fridgidaire appliances - stove, counter-depth French door fridge, dishwasher, and microwave. There are several steps that need to be completed before we get to the appliance installation so we'll give more details on that when we get there.

Our plan for the near future includes:
- demo: remove existing cabinets, floor, etc.
- install new cabinets
- install new appliances (we will slide out afterwards to lay floor)
- install new countertops (they have to be measured for after cabinets & appliances are in place)
- lay new floor (floor won't go under cabinets but will go under appliances)
- paint, tile backsplash, lighting, finishing touches

Sounds pretty simple, huh?! Yeh, right. I'm not kidding myself - I totally expect the next several weeks to be exhausting, stressful, and involve a lot of swearing. Our schedule above doesn't list all of the bumps that we expect to encounter - nor does it list all of the bumps that we don't expect. It is just a very rough framework but we will try to document and share whatever we have time for along the way!