Kitchen Nightmares: Somerville Edition

Jack has been doing a great job blogging and keeping you all up on the day-to-day progress of our kitchen nightmar…I mean, remodel… but he’s not telling you everything. Here’s how it really is.

So, I’m the cook here, and the whole reason we’re doing this is because, as a birthday present, Jack gave me his “endorsement” for redoing the kitchen. Very sweet and romantic, especially since I was all wishy-washy and afraid to spend the money on it (totally ridiculous when you realize that all the major expenses of this project are due to my “tastes”).

Truth is… it’s not very romantic at all. I feel like I’m trapped in a Peter Mayle novel, except that it’s “Two months in Somma-ville” (hopefully not a year), and this is not the Languedoc or Provence. Instead of delicious tales of wine, 3-star Michelin restaurants, and boule tournaments surrounding a home improvement project, we get to eat take-out and play phone tag with tile designers. I keep looking out the window in hopes of seeing quirky Frenchmen tossing balls in the backyard, but they are just not there.

I got on the scale yesterday. Three pounds heavier since the project started. It’s only been a week. Multiply that by six weeks (the estimated project length) and… well, thank goodness I’m not very good at math. I really don’t want to know. This is especially tragic considering I was hoping to wear this slinky top I bought from Chloe Dao herself (Project Runway fans take note) for a few holiday parties. Ummm…maybe next year.

One thing I’ve always loved about being “the cook” in the relationship is that Jack always does the dishes. In fact, he’s so passionate about it that he would criticize my dishwasher loading technique and politely (and sometimes no-so-politely) insists that I leave the room. Bonus for me: first choice of evening TV. Since we have no dishwasher at the moment, Jack’s well… just not that into it.

After a week of piled-up, cemented-on take-out remnants, I just couldn’t take it anymore. So there I was-outfitted in a beautiful dinner dress (who am I becoming, Donna Reed?), lugging pails of glassware and plates up the stairs to the bathroom sink. Scrub scrub in the sink, then rinse rinse in the bathtub. Classy. I had to put the dish drainer on the floor, but as soon as I started lining up the newly sparkling dishes, Ruskin and Clyde huddled close together licking every single one. OK, dishwashing project take two. Now, because there were breakables, I carried glasses down the stairs two at a time to the dining room, then back up…about seven trips total. Maybe I worked off some of those three pounds, but seriously. New house rule: no more glassware.

Look for future posts when I talk about what’s it’s really like to green a kitchen, as well as 21 ways to contain a cat and how to fail miserably at every single one.

Uncategorized commentary, dishes, food

Anne and I decided to write this blog to chronicle the ups and downs of our two-month kitchen project.  We’d heard so many stories, both positive and negative, about other home improvement projects, and we figured that our own project would have a pretty interesting story by the time we were done as well.

We’re now two weeks in and there’s been a lot of progress.  It’s exciting to come home each day and look at what’s been done, even if it’s just new plumbing or electrical wiring.  That excitement offsets the inconvenience of not having a kitchen.  Not all days have the same excitement, however.  Sometimes nothing happens, because of weather or subcontractor schedules or something else out of our control.

Yesterday, we came home and were not happy with the work that had been done.  It was the first time this has happened.  I immediately called George and talked through the issues, and he agreed to go over everything with the electrician to make sure it all gets done the way we want it in the end.  These were not catastrophic issues, just a bump in the road.

It’s easy to read last night’s post and assume that we’re not happy with the people working on the project.  That’s not the case at all.  I wasn’t happy with some assumptions that were made and the process which led to work that will have to be re-done.  We are happy with the project overall and the amount and quality of work done to this point.

I just wanted to clarify some of the sentiments of my last post and mention that the electrical issues are being sorted out.  Rain wiped out the vent installation that was scheduled to happen today, so there’s nothing else to report.  Much more to be done next week.

Uncategorized commentary, electrical