Renovation Day 0: The Kitchen Before

Last night, B and I (with the help of Nana!) scurried around the house clearing kitchen counters and the space in the basement below the bathroom. Our Project Manager had been by earlier to ready the house, laying down protective flooring and installing zipper doors.

Now, let me tell you, I was NOT prepared for how choppy the house is. They made a tunnel from our master bath straight out the front door, which cuts the front doors off from us, unless we want to go into the dust zone via a zipper door.

There's another zipper door from the keeping room into the kitchen, so if you go into the kitchen door, you have access to the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room, but have to go through a zipper door to get into the keeping room, our bedrooms, or the basement. Alternatively, you can go into the keeping room doors, but then only have access to the upstairs bedrooms and basement. Still with me?

I say all that to say that it would've been easier to move things around before those doors went in. Picture me moving our bags of clothes to donate to the front yard for pick up. So the bags are in the front living room, but to get them out, I either have to take the out the back door, down the steps, around the driveway, to the front sidewalk, or lug them through two zipper doors (and around the entire first level) to get out the front door. Needless to say, taking out the trash, stashing the stand mixer, and even just remembering to get O's water cup have become true efforts that require a little forethought.

The great news is that O slept through our cleaning and prepping last night, and was still asleep this morning through the bathroom demo. Y'all, they gutted the bathroom and my 16 month old slept through it with nary a sound machine in sight. This kiddos is tired.

Here's a few before shots of our kitchen (and yes, my counters are always this clean. Why do you ask?):

I'm definitely ready for a change, and it's not that we're doing a huge one-- new counters, appliances, and backs splash, but I'm also a little sad. This is a very happy kitchen, one in which I've spent a million hours feeding that sweet baby and making dinners for B and myself. 

Once again? The good: This happy room will now have insulation! I've always whined that this kitchen felt way too hot. Well, now that the zipper doors have shut it and and dining room off from the rest of the house, there's a clear distinction in temperatures, and that's without even turning on the stove. They're adding insulation, which I hope will make a huge difference!