Home Improvements: The Kitchen, Part 1

When we started talking about redoing the kitchen, I was about to explode with happiness. The old counter tops that were in the house when we bought it were awful! You can see from the photo above, that even when it was scrubbed clean three times a day, it still looked terrible. I was embarrassed for anyone to see it.

The wall behind the counter top was a mess as well. Fabgrandpa and I had both scrubbed and scrubbed on this wall, over the course of the two and a half years we have lived here, and it still looked like THAT! I have no idea what the woman who used to live here did, but it looked like she tried to splatter grease everywhere she could when she cooked.

We bought a gas stove when we moved in because I did not want to cook on electric. However, there has never been a kitchen exhaust system in this kitchen, ever. I know when I cook, we have to open windows and turn on a window fan to draw odors out of the kitchen. And the dryer is right there next to the stove–you can not dry clothes if you are cooking, otherwise, your clothes will smell like meatloaf or chicken. All of these things will be remedied when we are finished with the kitchen.

Last week, before the counter tops were installed, we took everything out of the kitchen, and painted the walls behind the base cabinets so that when the counter man arrived, he could install the counter tops and we wouldn’t have to worry about dripping paint on them after they were installed:

We didn’t get much of the kitchen painted–it’s hard work for two old people. But, we wanted to get the walls behind where the counters would be installed painted first.

The next day, the counter guy that Home Depot contracted with arrived to install the counters. He pulled out the sink first, then the old counters. He hauled them off too. We had to pay for that. It was included in the total price that we paid Home Depot. If we were able to take them out ourselves and take them to the dump, we could have saved $235.

I am still excited to just have this much done. After the counters were installed, we called the plumbing company to let them know the counters were in. They were supposed to send someone out the same day to install the sink. They told Fabgrandpa that they could not come until Monday. He told the lady on the phone that that was unacceptable, because this was on Friday. Fabgrandpa made a call to Home Depot about it, and 15 minutes later the lady from the plumbing company called back and said someone would be out that afternoon. Imagine that!

Now that the counter tops and sink are in, we have to finish painting the kitchen, and install our new range hood and exhaust fan system that I received from Broan-Nutone. I am super excited about that!