Slow and Steady

Prep, prep, prep. That feels like all we've been doing the last week. It's just as well, since I'm still dickering over the final paint selection for the cabinets. But the choice has to be made by this afternoon, since I can't get paint over the weekend and I'm planning to put the first coat on Monday morning.

We've papered, taped, tarped, spackled, sanded, cleaned, rinsed, etc. for several days now. We've moved appliances, removed hardware, cleaned out the cabinets, and generally made a mess of the rest of the house. Big, deep, cabinets all the way to the ten foot ceiling store quite a lot, as I've realized now that those contents have spread themselves all over two stories of farmhouse.

Most importantly, we set up the temporary kitchen in the laundry room. As the remodel will drag on for several more weeks, and our stomachs and wallets can only bear so much eating out, we created a "kitchen away from kitchen" as Jeff likes to call it. It actually feels quite familiar, given that I've only had a mini fridge and hot plate for the last five months anyhow! It's all about keeping our expectations low so any little improvement seems vast and any disappoint not far from the status quo ;-).

One amenity I have grown accustom to is hot water, but sadly, we have none of that at the moment. We just realized our water heater (the one hiding out behind the mini fridge in the first photo) has a pilot light that won't stay lit, so now we have only cold water to clean up with on a Friday afternoon after being covered in dust and dirt. We're hoping it's just the thermocouple, so Jeff is going to change it out and we'll see what happens. If it's not one thing, it's another!