d i y

So, the "fun and glamorous" phase of our kitchen remodel is done. You know, the part where you walk through showrooms and gaze at perfectly aligned, fully functioning cabinets, and slide your hand over cold, shiny pieces of granite countertop. Your dream kitchen is firmly entrenched in your brain, you can just see how beautiful it's going to look. It won't be a big deal, you aren't tearing down walls or anything. Just replacing all of the cabinets, and countertop, and painting the walls, and installing a backsplash. Really, just a little d i y.

And then you come crashing down to reality, after you go to Ikea and load your truck up with the 120 pieces of things you will need to make the cabinets. Not counting the hardware. And then you organize them all in your garage, and realize not only will you need a place to store all of the stuff you are taking out of your old cupboards, and the old cupboards themselves, and the new cupboards before they are installed. And you remember you live in a tiny house, with a basement that is already full of simulator cockpits and store inventory and all of that stuff you have been meaning to give to Goodwill. But hey, it's not snowing out (dare I say that yet?) Can we just fill up the whole backyard with the stuff?

Mike and I have always been part of the D I Y group. Mostly to save money, surely not to save sanity. The only time we have hired someone is to roof our house, or paint the exterior, or install and inspect the water heater. And of course our store at the mall. At our old store, we did everything ourselves, the demo, the painting, etc. The MOA wouldn't let us build out our own store, apparently we needed to be part of a trade union. But that was fine with us, as we had plenty of other irons in the fire at the time.

So now that we have this much more leisurely life, we seem to think we can spend our summer putting in a new kitchen. Because as much as I like to think we can do this in just a few weeks, I envision this taking longer than that. We still have to run our store, and Mike still has events to compete in. But I think that's okay. My normal MO is to do things in a day-because once I start something I want to see the end result as soon as possible, and then scrub the floor and shine up the windows and have it looking magazine ready. But I think I know that this project is a little more involved than that, so I am making lots of lists, and taking a deep breath, and just letting it happen as it needs to.

So when I call you or email you and I am all stressed out, just remind me about what I wrote today.