I have humongous reveal for you. Wait. That sounded a bit dirty. Ha ha! I can’t spill all the deets but it rhymes with kitchen schmenovation. Holy batman! Brace yo’ self for awesomeness. Shimmery gold ahhhhhmazingness….
Remember when I mentioned the kitchen renovation all casual like, as if it wasn’t a big deal? And it wasn’t. Until it was.
Have you ever felt such overwhelm during a renovation that you think…
"OH JUST KNOCK THE WHOLE DAMN HOUSE DOWN AND START OVER?!"
It happened. I ended up at the corner of overwhelm and erhhhmergerd. It was a tough five months annnnnnnd I may or may not have been watching too much Dexter.
It was a shitastrophy shit storm.
Want to know what happens when your contractor abandons you when you are waist deep in a kitchen renovation? I lived with a vodka filled hip flask and a constant stream of popcorn for dinner. Kidding. Not kidding. The struggle was real.
You may remember this blog post when we started planning our kitchen reno. I wrote it way back when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (what exactly does that mean??! ) Right after that, the kitchen went to hell in a hand basket.
It’ll take 48783057435345436534 posts to share the entire renovation. The good, the bad and the messy middle. PS. the middle was super-duper-fragilistic messy.
The new kitchen is WHITE. Obvs. Hello, have you met me? I know I’ve mentioned about four thousand trillion billion times before, but I’m super into white .
I love white and the staggering simplicity it brings to a space.
Let’s be clear on this right now: If you invite me into your home and try to convince me that brown is where it’s at, I’m not falling for it. You can drug me, and I still won’t have it.
The new kitchen has a walk-in-pantry. We even hid the refrigerator behind panels in the pantry. Didja see how I slipped that in there? Yup. Hid. The. Refrigerator.
Boom chick-a-wow-wa… it’s hiding around the corner in this photo…
Here’s the pantry before//after. Need a barf bucket? Technically, the refrigerator is also hidden in these photos, but I promise it’s in there. Why did I just confuse you like that? Sip.
Wanna see that again? Before & aftaaaa…
You can see a pinch of the refrigerator, up there ^^^ on the right. The pantry isn’t complete yet. It should be completed by 2096, right after I see pigs fly.
Dang, things got crap-tastic.
I have to tell you something. All the photos are a sparkling rendition of what really happened.
The kitchen was the worst renovation experience in the history of ever.
Normally, home renovation is one of my very favourite things on earth. I thrive on it. T.H.R.I.V.E. Weirdo, right? Not this time. This time, I had to find joy in the little things because the big things weren’t happening.
I worked for a YEAR towards the ahhhhmazing opportunity to have our kitchen featured in Chatelaine Magazine. That was the hardest work and the best work, all at once. A year of planning and then ….
Our contractor put it all together with bubblegum & hot glue.
On the day of a photo shoot, the kitchen LOOKED somewhat photo worthy, but we didn’t have running water, parts were hot glued in place, things were unfinished & mismatched, countertops weren’t sealed, cabinet doors were falling off, drawer handles were missing and the dishwasher panel literally fell off. Nothing truly functioned, compliments of our super unreliable contractor.
Cue stress.
This is what our kitchen looked like, the day before the shoot…
The day before. <— I screamed that.
Are you making a face that slightly resembles this—> ?!?!?!?!!!!!. Yeah, me too. Sip.
During the same time, my hubby Michael was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Quite honestly, I didn’t think life could get worse. We had been living with a sink in the basement and eating meals off our laps for 5 months. I’m sure my family was prepping a straight jacket for me and a nice little rubber room (hopefully with white walls)
Depressing much? Plans this weekend? Besides deleting me from your blog reader?
Getting swung by the tail
Pretty much everything that involved our contractor was chaos. I’d rather move to another country and change my phone number than have a really scary, honest conversation with somebody that wasn’t doing their job. I want everybody to be friends and I want everybody to be kind.
For 5 months, he basically went AWOL. He went everywhere and anywhere, except our kitchen. When he was occasionally present, his presence and workmanship sucked all of the fun out of the room.
Not cool. Not cool. Not cool. Not cool.
We lived with a demolished, non-existent kitchen for what felt like f.o.r.e.v.e.r. It was an eternity, in kitchen years. The whole nightmarish experience would best be described as a Stephen King novel. A horror show. It took a long while to feng shui that evil out.
And you peeps wonder why I drink. Haha.
Plan for the worst, hope for the best.
The five month experience was so bad, I cried. A lot. Annnnnnnnd I’m a professional. Go figure.
It burned me out to a crispy crisp. Charred. Frayed at the edges. Gonzo.
The kitchen was quite possibly the most trashed up thing you’d see this side of the border, but somehow it managed to get from here….to here….
Well that’s it. That’s all. Nope. I have soooooo many great kitchen DIY’s and ideas to share with you, but I’m trying to control myself and not blurt it out all at once. Okay. One more sneak peek …
SHOP THE POST
SOURCES
Shop the entire kitchen here … it’s full of Wayfair goodness and a kitchen Q & A too! | Champagne gold Faucet, towel bar, vanity tray c/o Delta Faucet Canada | Reclaimed barn board flooring: Antique Wood Flooring | Pillows & roman blinds c/o Tonic Living | Linen Curtains Not Perfect Linen (AMAZING!!) | Concrete counter top DIY with Buddy Rhodes Concrete !
If you want to back up the bus and see where it all started, you can see the original kitchen in this blog post here. You can also see the progress here on Instagram {where I not-so-secretly stalk a bunch of people that I want to be my friends.}
This is your moment of glory. Tell me your kitchen story. What are your biggest kitchen challenges? (besides drinking vodka from a hip flask?) I would never evah everrrr do that.
PS. I love you. That is all.
