Flash Back Friday

Our Kitchen disaster... REMODEL
May 2004
When the twins were just over 6 months old we decided to take on a project. Life was already crazy why not make it crazier, we decided to remodel the kitchen. In our defense the kitchen was not just outdated but most of the drawers and cabinets were broken. Our plan was to raise the low ceiling, remove tile on floor and walls, new cabinets, new counters, new doors, new hardwood floors. Alan is pretty handy and was going to demo everything, do the hardwoods and whatever he could himself. We hired a plumber, electrician, dry wall, door guy, cabinet maker, and someone to do the counters for the rest. The project began late one night like this:

Kitchen before

and within minutes Alan decided to take a leap and cut into the ceiling and get it going :
By the next day Alan had removed the island and a lot of tile. I was getting worried... where would the twins crawl. How to keep them out of the mess.

and it just kept getting worse and there was more mess..

Front entry

Entry to kitchen

Taking out the tile was no easy task. The tile was put in with screws every 1/2 inch so it was impossible to get out and had to come out in pieces. This stage lasted from May 2004 to June 2004. Once the demo had be done ( what a mess it was) we moved onto the doors and drywall stages. Remember we lived in the kitchen and used it for a whole month!

Door before

During

Doors almost done

Near the end of June, the plumbing was done, the electrician was done, the dry wall was done, and the doors were in...

Notice no more kitchen sink...

Next we began cleaning and painted getting ready for the wood floors. There was a BIG mess.
It was getting close to the cabinets completion date and it was time to allow the sink to be removed. This would mean no more use of the kitchen. Amazingly till this point I was still using the kitchen. I was going crazy with four small children in a house with the worst mess ever. Remember I had four kids five and under!




So off I went to pick up the wood we ordered... I get there (its a holiday weekend) and they don't have it. They are unconcerned and tell me to check back after the weekend. Now mind you we have rented tools and Alan has extra time off to do the wood floors. So I frantically begin searching for a replacement wood we find nothing. We resign ourselves to the situation. Finally the wood floors come in and Alan takes work off to do it. By the way Alan has no experience doing this at all. His mom, brother and Alan stay up all night for two days working on it. They had to get it in before the cabinets were installed that week...


What an amazing feeling to have floors again. I was elated. The mess was almost gone and that week our cabinets and counters would be in. The relief was palatable! Fast forward a week. The floors are in, the dust in gone... the kitchen is still empty! The guy making our cabinets is unreachable. Panic is setting in because we need the cabinets and he has half our money (no small amount either). After reaching him once and him assuring me he was only running late I was still getting worried. Another one of his own deadlines passed and he was again unreachable I began calling his references and spoke to his sister. She was utterly shocked and told me he had joined the military several months ago and was gone! Our cabinets had not been begun and were never going to done by him. I was at Home Depot on my cell phone and I was sick to my stomach, the tears were falling. I was horrified. Now I had to go home and tell Alan. After a bad bad night I woke up the next day resolved to fine new cabinets, we had to. Fairly quickly the company doing our Granite said they would be able to do it. So I began working with them and picking out our designs. Even with a rush on it all it would not be done for atleast a month! NO kitchen for another month. Not to mention we had to pay them half of the cabinet money too and our other money was GONE! The next month passed painfully slow, we ate out, we ate outside, we ate at Grandparents house. We suffered! August creeped in and the new cabinet deadline began approaching. Mid August our cabinets were finally installed. It would take another week to get counters and then a working sink. A week before the twins first birthday the kitchen was done.
Before:
After:

We still added more stuff after this but this was my official after picture. I worked with "the snakes" sister who felt very responsible (she was just honest and nice) and got her name on his account (with his permission) and she paid me a check once a month till the entire amount was paid off. He of course agreed to this (although I never talked to him again). So... we eventually (almost a year later) did get our money back. His dishonestly cost me a lot more than the money though! I give Alan a lot of credit during this disaster. First off he spent every spare moment the entire summer working on this nightmare. Late nights and all nights often. I have no idea how he learned how to put in woods floors, do canned lights, and the painting of and installing of all the trim was exhaustive. He also had to deal with me who was very stressed. I was still nursing the twins (which was a blessing in disquise because atleast I did not need to prepare formula or wash bottles). I just fed them their baby food out on the patio in their high chairs. Not to say it was easy, it wasn't.
This picture of the twins was taken right before we started this project... just to give you an idea how young they were.