I am super excited about our remodel! Can you tell? In my imagination it feels like “winning the lottery-having one of the best days of my life-pinch me because it doesn’t feel real” exciting. It doesn’t take much to get me excited… one of the best things ever was when candy manufacturers started making giant bags of mixed candy because I sure was bummed when I aged out of Trick-or-Treating when I was 12 (and my, then 7 year old brother came home with a giant bag of candy). Another example, on an even smaller scale, I discovered of the tastiest things ever this week- a morning bun made out of croissant dough. Seriously made my day. So tasty I googled “Peet’s coffee morning bun”. I love google (I was born in the 70’s so I remember the days when the only way to learn stuff about the world was reading encyclopedia’s if you’re family was fortunate enough to own a set or visit the the library, but that meant meant you also had to get a way to get there. I love libraries!! Then, there is the awesomeness of the internet and cell phones aka “hand held” computers – mind blowing but I digress – sorry, see I really am easily excited about so many things).
Anyway, based on my typical excitement scale – this kitchen remodel is HUGE!!
It’s like a dream come true. Except that I didn’t know that I had this dream. What started out as my husband’s wish to replace a few windows and a sliding patio door became quite the undertaking – The process involved removing and completely reconfiguring
- the entire downstairs back wall to our house
- windows & doors
- electrical wires, outlets, and light switches
- plumbing,
- more walls,
- a room
- cabinets,
- and fixtures.
The width and length of the room is staying the same, but that’s about it; think of a small house being completely gutted and the walls removed to the framing – that’s pretty much what ended up happening.
We were not planning on such an expansive re-model, but one thing led to another. Since, I love to bake, our kitchen remodel seemed to naturally take off in that direction. The light bulb moment was when I remembered that my husband has always said that he would buy me a bakery; which, until know, I always thought was one of those “dreams”. Plus, I really couldn’t imagine taking on a business especially in the food industry, while I’m in the midst of “mom-duty” to our 3 teens living at home. Once our children are out of the house, I really don’t want to be tied down to anything.
Just like some people have craft rooms, my vision is to set up my kitchen like a mini cafe/ small scale bakery – it just happens to be in my home instead of a store front. Ideally I would have two kitchens, but since that’s not possible I’ve tried to design the kitchen so that it functions as both a home kitchen & separate bakery just all in the same room. Plus, in the retail world the kitchen is separate from the cafe area and mine has to all work together so I set it up in stations. This proved challenging since I also had to work around the fact that the sink had to stay in relatively the same area, as did the “too big for our kitchen” refrigerator, and cook-top/oven. Plus I had to work with the same amount of wall space for cabinets.
The advantage I had was that I have lived with this kitchen for 18 years so I knew for sure what didn’t work. Our contractor gave us ideas from his past remodels, we used the website Houzz, Google, Amazon and of course the diy pandora’s box called Pinterest. Then our contractor told us what was possible and impossible. Technically, nothing is impossible if you have millions of dollars – enough said. Impossible in our situation means if we could somehow work around the obstacles, stay in budget and make the space more functional for our needs (we did spend a little extra money on desires – although the desires are things we’ve been waiting 18 years for.
Thankfully my husband and I are almost always on the same page with decorating & design ideas. In fact, when one of us shares their idea with the other, it typically results in the other person generating even more great ideas. Now, if only rearing children were that easy – that typically results in one of us asking “What do we do now?” and the other responding, “I have no idea”. There should be a Pinterest for that – haha.
Featured photo from miele.com
Baking 4 Six ~Please visit my new blog at Baking4Six.com 