Kitchen Remodel

Let’s just forget for a moment that I can’t bend over at the waist, or that in less than two months our family is going to increase in size by 33.3%. (NOTE: For those of you sending me email telling me that my math is all wrong and that our family will be increasing by 50%, you’re forgetting that our family, including Chuck, already has three members. You can’t forget Chuck!) Let’s also forget that the biggest home improvement project Jon and I have ever participated in involved $29.99 Ikea lighting, and that during that project I came within a millimeter of accidentally drilling a hole in his ass with the 14.4v DeWalt. If we forget these things and just concentrate on the fact that we’re undertaking a kitchen remodel in the middle of the holiday season in Utah when the average temperature hovers just below freezing, all without the aid of an experienced contractor, you might think we’re insane. You would be entirely correct.

This kitchen remodel involves the complete and utter destruction of the existing kitchen, which includes the removal of three layers of flooring, demolition of a wall of built-in cabinetry, and hacking into over 12 feet of 80 year old lathe and plaster. While it would be totally possible to complete this demolition by letting me waddle around the kitchen for a few hours, taking out chunks of wall with my mammoth thighs, we opted instead for specially designed crow bars and sledge hammers which aren’t in danger of going into early labor.

And when I say “we” I am totally misleading you, because I really had nothing to do with the demolition part of this process. I may have plucked a few staples from the wood floors here and there, and you’ll never see a more enthusiastic, pregnant cheerleader, but 121 square feet of Smurf blue kitchen was smitten and sent to Jesus through the hands of my beloved husband alone. I have never in my life seen someone wield a sledge hammer like my husband wielded a sledge hammer this weekend. He is truly the sexiest man alive.

Here is a photo of the wall of built-in cabinetry as Jon cleans the coffee pot in the kitchen sink for the last time. We’ve had to wash all our dishes by hand because even though we possess the technology to pause live television and update our websites from the toilet, our countertops aren’t high or deep enough for a dishwasher:

Here is a close-up of the fine workmanship of the cabinetry, lined with torn pieces of linoleum, which we estimate to be over 50 years old.

This is a broader view of the built-in cabinetry. Did I mention that we don’t have a garbage disposal? I can REWIND LIVE TELEVISION, but I can’t even dump mushy peas down the kitchen sink. It’s just so medieval.

Here is Jon investigating the state of the tiles on the backsplash moments after successfully ripping the plywood cabinet fronts from their hinges.

Here is my husband’s Carhartt-clad sexy ass as he disassembles the guts of the cabinets that once held the 400lb cast iron sink.

Here is photographic evidence of the wielding of the sledge hammer. What grace! What form! I can’t wait to make another baby!

Once all the cabinets were removed he had to tackle the floor, which you see here consisted of three sets of linoleum and a particleboard subfloor, all sealed to the fir floor underneath with ASPHALT.

Here is Jon, The Bad Assest Motherfucker on the Planet, having just sawzalled into the lathe and plaster surrounding the plumbing. You’ll notice that he is sporting what I like to call Movable Type Hair, a hairstyle that usually results from endless hours spent in front of the iMac coding templates and trouble-shooting CSS. This bad case of Movable Type Hair happened as a result of 40 straight hours of sledge hammering.

Here is what is left of the floor. We somehow managed to fit all three layers of linoleum and every inch of the particleboard subfloor into the back of our Nissan XTerra, which we then drove around town in search of a dumping ground. Risking heavy fines and possible imprisonment, we unloaded the entire heaping mess into a small dumpster in the parking lot at a nearby high school. Shhhhhh!

This is our new kitchen set-up, now in the dining room.

This is Chuck completely exhausted from having to witness all the sledge hammering. Don’t ever accuse this dog of having it easy.

My belly at 31 weeks. I’m surprised you can’t see the imprint of her face laughing maniacally as she plays ping pong and shoves her feet up under my rib cage.