It only seems like I’m still talking about the kitchen

In our old kitchen, we kept the spices in an IKEA “Billy” bookcase with CD inserts. We had originally thought we would put that bookcase back in the shiny new kitchen, but after we painted we realized it would look hideous, so into the outside pantry it went. Now, I had planned to go on keeping the spices in bookcase, but Andrew won’t let me because the outside pantry isn’t insulated. The spices! We must protect them from humidity and drastic changes in temperature!

So instead, we have haphazardly shoved the spices into one of our cabinets, all willy-nilly, thus ensuring that we will never be able to find the spice we want at any given moment. Since our old system in the Billy bookcase allowed us to group the spices alphabetically, this new system leaves something to be desired. (Leave me alone, it was a wonderful, not-OCD-at-all system. Shut up.) So last week I went out to try to purchase some sort of organizational device to save us from our living nightmare. I had planned to buy one of those expandable step-stair shelving things like this, but Bed & Bath didn’t have any. So I mulled things over and by the time I came home I realized that the step-stair shelves would be a terrible idea, because not only would it not hold all the spices, but it would also be impossible to get at the spices in the back without knocking down all the spices in the front, causing me to scream in rage and frustration. In fact, they’d probably all fall over every time I even opened the cabinet. No, what we needed were some boxes. Stackable boxes, sized perfectly for our cabinet. We could put the spices in the boxes in alphabetical groups, and label their tops. That way, if we needed cinnamon, we could take down the “A-G” box, scan the top, and pull the cinnamon out in a snap. A snap! It was genius. Genius, I tell you!

But when I explained my brilliant plan to Andrew, he was unimpressed. He thought the boxes were a terrible idea, saying that we wouldn’t be able to get at the short ones and they’d be impossible to get out of the boxes.

I remained calm in the face of this clear insanity, and asked him what he suggested as an alternative. He said something about shelves or something. I don’t think I was really listening, because I was too busy thinking about how my idea was the perfect solution, and wondering what was wrong with him that he couldn’t see it? Especially when, at one point, he said that in a perfect world he’d like to have a deep drawer for the spices. When we opened it, we could look down on their labeled lids. “But that is the same as boxes!” I cried in frustration.

After many agonizing minutes, I finally had to put a stop to the conversation because I was so incredibly irritated. “I got irritated ten minutes ago,” Andrew replied. And it took me the next two hours get over it. He was just so… wrong! And I was right! Right right right! And apparently, Andrew felt the same way in reverse.

But here’s the really interesting part. Andrew and I have been married for almost five years, and we’ve known each other for more than ten, but this was basically our first fight. This is in part because we are both non-confrontational, but also because we so rarely disagree. We either feel the same way about something, or else one of us doesn’t really care. So it’s nice to find out that we are able to remain calm, and take that necessary step away when discussing such highly charged subjects as spice storage.

A few things I have learned about the "Mom" version of myself:

1. Unlike the childless, tiny-pursed me, the "Mom" version of me carries a big ol' honkin' bag. But I get them for less than $7, so any sting is removed when I get to say, "Thanks! It was only $6!" in response to compliments. Also, aside from my wallet and a diaper or two, my purse is full of toys, so it's generally more fun than the little one. I was once rooting through it looking for my sunglasses and commentating on the contents for my friend's benefit. "There's a one, there's a seven," I said. She was confused, because she thought I meant money. "No, an actual 1 and a 7," I told her, and held up some foam puzzle pieces that Jack likes to carry around. And finally, a large purse that costs $6 is a heck of a lot lighter than a small purse that costs $110. I think it's because the $6 one might not be made of leather.

2. I am the mom at playgroup whose kid has a dirty face, food-stained mis-matched clothes, and no snacks. Fortunately, my playgroup is forgiving. (I mean forgiving of the snack thing; I'm sure they don't give a damn about the dirty face.) In my defense, I often don't bring snacks on purpose because playgroup tends to meet close to supper time, but sometimes I just forget. Also, I do wash his face. Really! He just gets dirty SO FAST. I am 100% reconciled to food-stained clothes though, because he's one. He spills stuff.

3. I am not above teaching my child things for my own selfish amusement. Jack knows what zombies say, ("Braaaaiiiinnns!") and what to do when I say, "Wonder Twins Power, Activate!"

4. I believe it's never too early to get kids interested in current events.


Oh! Hey! some of my new kitchen is included in that shot! Which reminds me: I owe you a real picture! I will get on that pronto. The main kitchen is essentially done and is good enough for a picture. We're going to start painting the inside pantry this Saturday, because we refuse to lose momentum.

Also: The vacation completely screwed up Jack's sleeping habits

So. I’ve been quite busy. Not kitchen-finishing busy, no. Don’t be ridiculous. It’s only been fourteen weeks!

I have to break in here to say that I couldn’t remember exactly when we started and had to check the blog archives to see. Fourteen weeks? FOURTEEN WEEKS? I mean, I knew it had been a long time, but sheesh. And we haven’t even STARTED the inside pantry. Sob.

Ahem. So, no, I have not been working on the kitchen. No, I have been vacationing, swimming, welcoming a new nephew into the world, and celebrating the Fourth. (We celebrated the Fourth by NOT working on the kitchen.) Oh! And I met Click! Or Clack! It was either Click or Clack!


Ray and some NPR geeks

It was a fundraiser for our local NPR station in which we NPR donors were shown the world premier of Car Talk’s new PBS cartoon, As the Wrench Turns, and I have a few things to note. First, as much as I love Click and Clack, their cartoon is kind of terrible. Second, there was a question and answer period, and Tom, the one I did not get to meet, reminded me of my aunt who recently died. It was spooky. It’s not that he looked like her, it was more his attitude. Something about the way he said, “Ed, no one gives a shit,” when the MC was trying to get the guys to explain every detail about how the cartoon came to be. It kind of warmed the cockles of my heart. And lastly, there was free food and beer at the event, and when we arrived, Andrew and I saw a big crowd of people over by the beer sign. “That must be the line for the beer,” I said. It wasn’t. It was the line to meet Ray. There was no line for beer.

No line for free beer.

That’s when I knew we were at an NPR event. Maybe if it had been white wine spritzers?

At any rate, we waited in the line – after we got our beers – and got Ray to sign Jack’s talking drill. So even though the cartoon was bad, the night was an overall success.


The drill in question

Now for the vacation. Last weekend, we took a short trip to visit a certain internet superstar:


The internet rockstar in question

We had a fantastic time. We got to see ducks, goats and geese*, a giant elephant and bugs**. Also motorcycles!*** Although I have to say, Jack would probably have been fine if we had spent the whole weekend at the airport, looking out the window:


Trucks! Planes! Even more trucks!

I don’t really have any hilarious stories about the weekend. Jack, being the easy going little dude he is, slept just fine in the strange hotel room. Sure, there was an incident at 4:30 am on Sunday morning in which we heard “Where bink go? Where bink? Where go bink?” over the monitor, followed by a shrieking incident at 4:50 in which we discovered the light we had left on for him had burned out. No, he did not go back to sleep. But I would not DREAM of complaining, as he had gone to bed at 7:30 the night before, and he slept through on Sunday night. He also took all his naps.

I just reread that paragraph and realize that no one really cares except for maybe Arwen, who is cursing me under her breath right now. I’m really sorry, Arwen! I’m sure our second child will never sleep at all! (Note: I am not pregnant.) So, sorry about that.

Asher and Jack seemed to get along fairly well, so long as Asher kept his mitts off the Little People gas station and Jack stayed well away from the Baby Einstein DVD case.


These two are possibly tired

All in all, it was a fun but uneventful weekend. And the best part was, even when we were sitting around the hotel room while Jack slept, we were still not working on the kitchen.





Speaking of the kitchen, it is, as I have said, not quite done. But almost! For real! There are a few areas of touch up painting and we have to move the refrigerator back in, and that’s it! Well, except for the drawer pulls and the cabinet kickboard and hanging stuff on the walls, but I promise I will not make you wait until it’s completely finished before I show you a picture. You will have to wait until the refrigerator is back in, though.

In the meantime, I leave you with these teaser “after” photos. Witness our excellent color choices!


Wainscoting


Walls


Cabinets


*At the zoo.
**At the Natural History Museum.
***Just around town. But there were seven of them parked in a row! Seven!

I can't begin to describe the depths of my hatred for that drawer

You know, I never know if I should comment about a long break between posts. This time I will, and I'll say that I haven't been posting because I've been too busy putting the finishing touches on the kitchen. These "finishing touches" are naturally taking forever, because the kitchen is as determined as ever to thwart us in our remodeling plans. "We'll just clear off the pantry shelves and shore them up before we reload them. It will only take fifteen minutes," we'll say, mere seconds before the pantry shelves fall completely off the walls. Why didn't they fall down before, when they were loaded with heavy, fragile, expensive things? Your guess is as good as ours. But I will say that these Closet Maid support brackets are the dumbest design ever.* They hook onto the top of the shelves despite the fact that gravity generally pulls things bottom-ward, so if anything bumps into the support bracket, the shelf pops out of the hook and it's all over.

Today we bought new shelf supports and Andrew installed them, and then, while I was trying to sort through our hundreds of baking dishes, Andrew installed the cabinet drawers. Except he didn't, because the house's complete lack of right angles struck again and we were thwarted. Thwarted! After about an hour of painstaking drilling, measuring, and leveling while crouched inside a small cabinet, Andrew discovered the drawer is not so much a rectangle, and does not fit on the carefully squared and leveled drawer rails. It's not even a parallelogram. No, the best the drawer can do is "quadrilateral." It's incredibly frustrating, but it does at least explain why this particular drawer used to fall off the rails just about every time we pulled it open.

So. The kitchen is progressing, but slowly. The good news is that the cabinet hardware might actually be here by the time we get the drawers and countertop installed, so the after pictures won't make you say, "That looks really good! Except... are those the door pulls you are keeping?"

The kitchen was not able to stop me from meeting my blogging friend Becca, however. No, I was able to mess that up all by myself. Becca, Ryan and Charlie were going to stop and visit with me and Jack on their way from Maine to Cape Cod last Wednesday. They called me when they crossed into Massachusetts, just like we arranged, and right on time! Jack and I were miraculously ready to go when they called, so we headed down to the ice cream shop I selected for a meeting place. It was right on their way, it only required they get off Route 128 one exit early and - post ice cream - get on Route 93 one exit late. I gave them fantastic directions, complete with landmarks and amusing commentary. Well, fantastic except for the part where I said they wanted exit number 28 when in fact they wanted exit number 38. In my defense, I did say exit 28 FOR route 28 - the correct route number - so I am not entirely responsible for their near miss at divorce. Still, I am very sad that Jack and I did not get to meet the lovely Becca and her toddler who dances like this. Becca and I have eerily similar interests, by the way. On her site, she has sidebar links to cloth diapering, church choir music, and Matlab. We're clearly meant for each other.

In other general news, Jack is still sleeping in his crib, but we put some pillows down in case he ventures over the rail again before we get the toddler bed set up. We experimented briefly with putting the mattress on the floor - it didn't go over well at all. He also gave himself five a bunch of times the other day. He'd slap his own hand and say, "Aw-wight!" He did it about twenty times. It's just getting more and more fun, people.

*Second place goes to the bottle for Method dish soap. Look at it! There is absolutely nowhere to grip it if your hands are slippery, like if they are, say, COVERED IN DISH SOAP.

The angels are singing

Andrew and I just finished hanging the doors. The doors are UP! There will no longer be any need to announce, "I am going to use the bathroom," in order to keep parties out of the kitchen! And I did finish the painting yesterday afternoon, and then last night, we hung 2/3 of the cabinets, completely without incident. The place looks like a room! That people live in!

It helps that today I hung the blinds and curtains, and was therefore able to remove the beach towel cum privacy screen from the window.

I'm so happy, I could cry. We still have a couple of cabinets to hang, and installing the base units and countertop is going to take forever thanks to the undulating wave that is our floor. (The counters and stove need to be level, you see, or we'll get slanty cakes.) Still, you have no idea how much easier today was with Jack after having picked up all the knives, sharp screws, drills and whatnot from the kitchen floor. I even moved his little table in there so he could watch me install the curtains, and he was thrilled.

I have a pricking in my thumbs that tells me there will be pictures next week, my friends.

Microsoft, I will restart LATER. Later, I tell you!

Kitchen remodel what now?

I assume you are all on the edges of your seats, desperate to see pictures of my newly finished kitchen. And trust me, I would LOVE to show them to you. Unfortunately, we are in some sort of endless loop of hanging and rehanging cabinets and I firmly believe the kitchen is not going to be finished before I die.

Why do we have to rehang the cabinets you ask? Well, because of the stupid microwave vent. All the cabinets have to be exactly right or the microwave won't fit over the vent. Andrew hung the first cabinets on Saturday, but then we realized he made a very uncharacteristic measuring mistake, so we had to rehang them. And then we realized that the vent was originally placed according to the height of the old floor, and the new floor is an inch higher. So we had to start over again. It was awesome.

You know what else? I put the second coat on the trim last night while Andrew was busy cursing the microwave and its vent to an eternity in hell, and guess what happened! The painter's tape ripped off huge chunks of the wall paint, because the wall paint, it turns out, was not quite dry even though it had been on the walls for about 72 hours. Stupid humidity. So now we have large patches we have to touch up.

We are close to finishing. So very, very close. But there are still a million things to do, all of which are difficult to complete whilst toddler-wrangling. And then, when we're done, we're going to have to paint the inside pantry, the thought of which makes me want to weep.

But the good news is that the trim in the pantry will be done already. Painting the trim is only slightly worse than painting porch railings. There are just so many surfaces! One of the corners in the kitchen has three door jambs, and that is approximately 32891 square feet of surface area. So you paint and paint and paint but never get to move. The trim in old houses would be an excellent substrate for catalysis, is what I'm saying. (That there is an extraordinarily nerdy chemistry joke. It's also a terrible chemistry joke, so don't worry about it.)

But Jack is currently napping, so I am going to go finish the stupid trim once and for all, and then fold laundry. My life is a neverending thrill ride, I know.

Me. Me me me me me. Me me. Me.

Does the word "me" look weird to anyone else now?

I've always considered myself to be a thoughtful, considerate person, but since Jack was born, I've noticed that I am actually incredibly self-centered. This is a particularly startling revelation given the timing; usually one would expect a person to become more selfless after becoming a mother, but, then, I've never been one to follow a trend.

It's not like I'm walking around completely ignoring other people or anything, it's just that, when, in the course of small talk someone asks me how Jack is doing, I tell them. I tell them he's fantastic, he's so smart, he did this really funny thing yesterday, yada yada yada, and - whoops! Gotta go. Then, as I'm walking away, I realize that at no point did I ask this person how HER son is doing. Her son who is the same age as Jack.

But here's the thing: I think I do this when people ask me about other things as well, like, say, home renovations. Or work. Or any other of the myriad of things I'm interested in, but which - let's be frank - the people with whom I'm making small talk are not.

I must, therefore, have been doing this for years. But now I am aware of it, and have been training myself to take an interest in others. Thus, small-talk conversations with me are now more along the lines of, "Jack? He's great! He's so smart! He did this really funny thing yesterday where he.... but how's YOUR son?" And I hardly talk about the kitchen at all!

Speaking of the kitchen, we are moving into the final stages. The caulking is pretty much done and the nail holes are mostly filled and sanded. So tonight we need to finish patching up a few spots on the walls that got damaged, and start polyurethaning the doors. The poly is apparently going to take us at least two nights because each side needs two coats, but if all goes well, we will be ready to paint by this weekend. And painting is the last step before putting it all back together!

I promise to post a picture when it is complete.

Memorial Day: A summary

Blah blah blah kitchen, blah blah blah staining the doors, blah blah blah “Poor, poor me and my hardships caused by my brand new kitchen,” blah blah blah.

Then we had ice cream and went to the sprinkler park.

TOO MUCH STUFF

A hundred years ago when we were packing away all of our kitchen stuff for the three weeks’ duration of the kitchen remodel, we noticed that we had an inordinate number of baking pans. We couldn’t do anything about it then because we packed away our kitchen stuff at the last possible second and had to have it all done that very night. There was no time to sort and choose. We swore, however, that when the time came to put the stuff away in the shiny new kitchen, we would definitely NOT keep all seven 9x13 Pyrex baking dishes, all five metal 9x13 baking pans, all eight 9-inch round cake pans and the five different muffin tins that are all different sizes and therefore do not nest inside one another.

But here is my question for you: Should we keep metal pans or glass pans? And if we keep metal pans, should we keep the coated ones? Are the coated ones really better? Because the time is fast approaching when we will have to put away all our stuff again. Get to, I mean. We will GET TO put away all our stuff again.

But first we have to have the kitchen floor refinished. Again. Man, if anyone had warned us hardwood has to be refinished every ten days, we probably would have chosen a different material.

This is all I've got in me

It is late and I am tired. The major kitchen construction is “finished,” but it is anticlimactic because of the many niggling imperfections. The gouges in the brand new floor, for example, or the gouge in my dresser that happened when they removed or replaced the bedroom door trim, or the gouges in the bathroom door trim that was removed and put back in. There are also new gouges in the bedroom door trim but that trim was in pretty bad shape to begin with, so those gouges don't matter much.

And then of course, ahead of us likes the seemingly insurmountable task of cleaning a thick layer of plaster and sawdust off what seems like every object we own. And we own a lot of objects. A lot of small objects, with lots of cracks and crevices.

Still, we managed to wash just about every surface in the kitchen itself tonight, so tomorrow I’ll be able to put things into the kitchen as I wipe them off, and we’ll get there. I plan to clean the bathroom tomorrow and maybe even start wiping off the 800 things in the outside pantry while Jack plays with his new toy truck that I got for him today. It’s a “ba-oh-da (backhoe loader),” the caviar of trucks.

Dude, what the heck.

Andrew and I are a couple of well-rested, spoiled first-time parents. This I know. Jack goes to bed by 7:00 and sleeps for a minimum of eleven hours just about every night. So, yes, spoiled. Spoiled rotten. But this is precisely why we don’t know what to do when, for some mysterious reason, Jack wakes up at 11:00 at my in-laws' house where we are sleeping while we wait for the new kitchen floor to be refinished (oh yes, I said refinished, more on that later) and spends the next two hours cheerfully discussing whose chair is whose in the living room. “Dad-eee’s chay-ah. Beebaw’s (Grampa’s) chay-ah. Ghee’s (Gram’s) chay-ah. Mummy’s chay-ah. Ah’s (Jack’s) chay-ah.”

I am exaggerating, of course. We didn’t talk about chairs the whole time. We also spent quite a lot of time talking about the distant siren we had heard and how it was a fire truck, but it was gone now. “Chuck. Chuck gone. Chuck. Chuck fly way. Chuck. Chuck gone. Chuck. Chuck. Chuck… Chuck.”

I tried everything in my arsenal to get him to go back to sleep like usual, as well as many things I had never tried before. For example, I acquiesced to his unusual nocturnal request for yo-guh (yogurt) on the theory that hunger was keeping him awake. While in the kitchen, I was treated to a discourse on the objects therein: “Shoes. Dad-eee’s shoes. Sink. Yup. Mmhmm. Wah (water). Yup. Mmhmm. Cup. Yup. Mmhmm.”

Eventually I gave up, and, accepting the risk that he would keep the whole house awake, I put him in his bed and said, “Jack, it’s bedtime. Go to sleep.” I kissed him and left the room. He screamed in rage for about 5 minutes, fell silent, and we heard nary a peep until 6:00 the next morning.

Kids. WTF.

I knew there would be delays

Jesus felt bad that we would be sitting around our half-walled, floorless and doorless kitchen for up to two weeks, and said that maybe they could put the floor in before the doors after all. “Sweet!” we said, and moved Jesus up a number on our speed dial. They were able to start on Thursday, so we had to be out of the house until Saturday afternoon at the earliest to give the varnish time to dry. But because we were going to a wedding on Saturday night and Andrew’s parents were already planning to babysit for us, we just stayed at their house until Sunday.

By Sunday afternoon we were understandably itching to get home and see the shiny new floor. And it was beautiful! And shiny! Very shiny! And…wait, is it extra shiny there in the middle?

Yes, pools of varnish. Stupid old house with its stupid slanty floors.

But Jesus came through for us and told the floor guys they would not be getting any money until they fixed it. As such, I am typing this at my in-laws’ house because they hot-footed it over to our house today and we’re not allowed to walk on the floor until tomorrow afternoon.

I’ll post some pictures when I get home to my charger. I actually have a couple of non-kitchen related pictures I was going to post this weekend, but the battery – she is dead.

Trust me, though, the new kitchen will be so worth the wait.

Update on the kitchen situation

Still waiting for doors. But today, Jesus came and took out the old doors, so now we have no bathroom door. But he hung cleanish tarps up, so there's some privacy at least. And I'm a mom, so I rarely close the bathroom door anyway.

In other news, Jesus has offered us a really good deal on having the floor redone, so we are going for it. Andrew ripped up the old floor on Sunday and now we have to walk on a small carpet-remnant pathway to avoid skewering ourselves on rusty nails. It will be worth it though, because while the old floor looked fine in the room with the grease-stained walls, it would have looked horrendous next to the shiny new walls. Jesus says he is giving us the deal because he likes us, but I think it's also because he can't stand the thought of putting all that work into new walls only to leave us with the old, cracked floor.

I admit that I am starting to get really tired of living with the refrigerator in the dining room and no stove and no counters. It's very frustrating, because if we had decided to put new doors in when we planned the remodel, Jesus would have ordered them weeks ago and we'd be done now. but I keep reminding myself that it will be so worth it in the end. If the end ever comes. Supposedly it will be 3 weeks from now.

Not so blog-worthy

Clamorers, rejoice! I have for you a picture-laden post about my kitchen remodel. Perhaps, given the number of angry diatribes I wrote about The Bathroom Remodel, you expected a lot more posts about the current ordeal, but the kitchen remodel is going so much more smoothly that I just don’t have as much to say! I’m not even bothering to capitalize "kitchen remodel." Not that I am complaining, mind you. But that is exactly the problem. Posts about home renovations are only worthwhile if there is something to complain about.

Sure, there have been a few delays, but over the course of the past two weeks, the kitchen has gone from this:


to this:


to this:


Just look at those walls. See how there are no grease stains whatsoever? Lack of grease stains is a real plus in a wall, in my opinion. And all of this in only two weeks!

There have of course been a few delays, but all have been minor. For example, Andrew and I have just learned that we cannot paint the plaster for at least one more week because we have to make sure it sets properly. But there has only been one serious (and boring) problem, and it hinges on the location of the vent for the microwave. The vent, you see, is not where we wanted it to be. When this was discovered on Friday night, there was a lot of worrying about the possibility that we would not be able to vent the microwave at all which changed to concern that the drywall would have to be removed in order to move one of the new outlets, but it turns out our contractor will be able to patch it instead. So, no harm done! In fact, we’re going to end up with slightly more counter space than we had before!

So now we are waiting for the plaster to dry and for the doors to come in. The doors are actually the cause of the other major delay, but that is only because we decided to replace the doors at the last minute and they need to be special ordered. And unfortunately, the contractor can’t install any trim or wainscoting until the doors are in, which won’t be for another two weeks. But do you realize how easy it will be to paint the walls with no trim to worry about? No taping, and we can roll the whole thing. I’m almost looking forward to it.

The main reason this renovation is going so well is that we hired professionals rather than do it ourselves after work. That sort of thing makes a difference. But the other reason I think things are going so swimmingly is that The Bathroom Remodel was just so unbelievably painful, all other home improvements projects pale in comparison. It’s like sitting through a bad movie after having already sat through Gigli. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem that bad.

In closing, I present you with the following pictorial list:

Top Reasons The Kitchen Remodel Is Easier To Endure Than The Bathroom Remodel

1. The dining room:

During the kitchen remodel


During the Bathroom Remodel


2. The living room

During the KR


During the BR


3. The kitchen sink:

During the KR


During the BR

4. The bathroom sink:

During the KR


During the BR


5. The shower:

During the KR


During the BR


6. The toilet:

During the KR


During the BR


OK, just kidding on that one:


Not all THAT much better, though, huh.

7. Landing:

During KR


During BR


8. Dishwasher:

During KR


During BR


9. And last but most important of all, Jack:

During BR


During KR


Things are better this time, no?

Paint my kitchen

OK, Internet. I know you are clamoring for photos of the kitchen during the construction (if by "clamoring" I mean "in my imagination, I am assuming that you would be interested in photos"), but my computer is not working at the moment, and that's where the pictures are.

In the meantime, I need your help. As evidenced by my bathroom, I am incapable of picking paint colors. Witness:

That pink under the mirror? Well, monitor colors differ, blah blah blah, but that's pretty much what the pink looks like in person. Maybe a tad lighter. I thought it was going to be a lovely dusky rose.

So for the kitchen, we would like to avoid similar mistakes. We want a yellow and white kitchen, but there is some discussion about which yellow, which white, and what color the cabinets and ceiling should be. The yellow we settled on in the inside pantry is Benjamin Moore "Pernod," and in the pantry, it is bright with hints of green. I like it in the pantry, but I am very worried that it will look too bright, or not bright enough, or too green in the actual kitchen, because of course the light will be different. However, as you may be aware, I loathe painting, and do not want to repaint the pantry if it can be at all avoided. But I am concerned that if we paint the kitchen a different yellow, it will look like we tried to match it but failed.

The bottom half of the walls will have wainscoting, and we want that and the trim to be the same white. The white I originally picked was Sherwin-Williams "Bakery Box White," but I can't find that on the internet, and wonder if they discontinued it. I think Benjamin Moore "Oxford White" will work, though. It's white. And I don't mind repainting the trim in the inside pantry because there is hardly any in there, so it will only take an extra 10 minutes. (There will be no wainscoting in the pantry.)

Finally, Andrew wants the cabinets to be the same white as the trim, but I am afraid it is going to be too much white, so I want to paint them a creamy off-white. I am leaning towards Benjamin Moore "Indian White." Andrew thinks that will look stupid, but based on a picture I saw in a magazine, I think it will be nice.

As for the ceiling, I am at a loss. We don't want it white since there will be so much white in there already, and also white ceilings are a little boring. We're thinking half-tone of whatever yellow we pick for the walls or maybe cream? But is there a completely different color that would be cool? Like maybe a light green or something?

For those of you with enough of your own problems to worry about, I have three quick questions. First, do you think having two different yellows will look stupid? Second, do you think cream, white, and yellow go together? And is there any other color that will go with them for the ceiling?

For those of you who are bored at work, I ask the above questions but also have an assignment. Go to the Benjamin Moore website and use the "Personal Color Viewer" to examine the color combination of Pernod/Oxford White/Indian White. Do those go? Do you have a suggestion for a different yellow and/or off-white? And what should we put on the ceiling?

Please, don't let this happen again:

Demolished

I almost forgot to tell y'all: The demo is basically finished. There is no turning back now.

Yes, we have two pantries

Update: Emily informs me that the generosity has been overwhelming. The internet rocks. Now back to our regularly scheduled whining about trivialities.

There has been some confusion about the "outside" and inside pantries in our kitchen, so I have put together the following floor plan for your enlightenment, because I am nothing if not helpful. Well, that and Andrew actually made this a long time ago when we redid the bathroom.



In the original floor plan, our bathroom and inside pantry were both rectangular and the same size. During the renovation, we broke through the wall between them and made the bathroom into the L-shape you see on the current floor plan. It is approximately 10,000 times better.

The so-called “outside pantry” is really just an unheated room from which we can access the attic, but it is an unheated room with shelves in it. Hence: pantry. There also used to be access to the first floor apartment there, but as it would be weird to have a staircase connecting our apartment to our tenant’s, and as our bedroom closet was terrible and the downstairs back bedroom had no closet at all, we threw down a floor and threw up some walls and made a bunch of closets*. Much better all around. See, look:


Old bedroom closet


New bedroom closet

The new closet is better because, unlike the old closet, it can hold more than five outfits. Not that I have more than five outfits.

I’m not going to post any actual pictures of the outside pantry, because the layout is such that I can’t get in a position to take a picture of the whole thing at once, and splitting it into two pictures defeats the purpose because there is no sense of scale that way. It doesn’t matter anyway, as we are not currently renovating the outside pantry, so suffice it to say it’s a kind of dingy room with shelves, a closet, and a crappy storage cabinet. Eventually, Andrew is going to build a new storage unit, and in the meantime we just keep the door shut.

*Andrew would like me to note that by “we” I actually mean “Andrew and his dad.” He was amused by the blasé tone I am using to describe the closet construction, but it’s just that the entire process was very easy and painless for me.