Don’t Try To Renovate Your Kitchen Over Christmas

Hello.

It’s me.

Well here it is.  I have not made much progress on my kitchen renovation.  And I’m starting to lose it.

So next year I’m going to try to remember not to try to accomplish any major DIY project over Christmas break.  I know, you’re say “Duh!”  But I was living in denial.  I really thought I could build and install all my kitchen cabinets and be living it up right now.  Nope.  Not even close.

Hubby was away for the first 3 weeks of December (such bad timing and I cursed him as I put up the tree and all the lights outside and took the garbage out, etc), so even though my Barker Cabinets arrived December 18, I didn’t even uncrate (is that not a word?) them until after Christmas.  I swear I will give you all the details on the ordering process and assembly details soon enough.  Just let me get my life back together for a second.  I’m pretty close to losing my mind over the whole lack of a kitchen for so freaking long thing.

I did manage to get Christmas cards mailed out this year.  I used the picture I took of the kids when Santa came to visit our church for the annual tree lighting.  Not bad for outside at night.

On the bright side, you’re thinking, at least having a house in complete turmoil meant I didn’t have to host Christmas dinner.  And you would be wrong.  My family figured, ‘No biggie, we’ll just have Christmas dinner at Liz’s house even though she has no kitchen sink, or cabinets, or oven.  She can handle it.’  So I did.  I moved the brand new range, the one that’s been sitting in my family room for 6 months, into the kitchen. We hooked it up to the new gas line (installed by a plumber because I don’t mess around with that stuff) and my mom proceeded to burn the spiral ham she brought. I warned her that it’s a convection oven, but she cooked that pre-cooked ham for a full 90 minutes anyway.  Whatever.  I’m vegetarian.

Cleanup wasn’t too bad because we used paper plates and plastic utensils.  But the whole where to eat part was a little tricky.  There would have been space to eat in our dining room if it wasn’t a complete disaster.  We didn’t do such a good job boxing everything up when we took the kitchen apart — I guess we didn’t think we’d be without a kitchen for half a year — so all of our kitchen stuff is just kind of piled in the dining room. So we ate at our old dining table in the middle of the kitchen.  Without cabinets, the kitchen is quite spacious.

Of course I missed the Quick Tip Tuesday yesterday, so here’s a  couple of freebies for you.  My gift to you.

Tip #1 – Box up everything you take out of your kitchen cabinets during a renovation.

Don’t just pile it all on the dining room table, because that’s a hot mess.  While we’re at it, let’s add the obvious.

Tip #2 – Don’t try to host Christmas dinner when you have no kitchen.

We didn’t waste any time getting to work on the kitchen the next day.  I made a daily schedule of what would be accomplished and off we went.  A week later we hadn’t completed day 1 of my schedule… but we did have a few fun family adventures.  We went bowling, to the Franklin Institute, and hung out with friends.  The whole time I kept telling myself that I was going to kick it into high gear for the new year.  But the new year just meant lots of partying. Really.  We were out NYE and new years day.  Yes we brought the kids both nights, but they’re getting old enough where we can just leave them all in the basement and go about our business.  But not too old that you have to worry about all the boys and girls down there together unsupervised, if you know what I mean.

I added some more pictures to my photo booth post, but here’s one of my favorites.

There was too much fun stuff going on last weekend that we continued to ignore the kitchen and hang out with the kids.  We took the them to the Young Innovators Fair, which was cool, and made a stop at IKEA on the way home.  Of course.

Bottom line is that Christmas vacation is for hanging out with the family, and I should have known better than to try to do a major (or minor) DIY project while the kids were home from school.

Tip #3 – Don’t Try To Renovate Your Kitchen Over Winter Break

Hubby took off from work this week, so I figured we’d get the kitchen done once the kids went back to school.  But my younger daughter, Lulu, got sick Sunday night and missed the first two days back to school.  At least I got my son to school, he had missed about 3 weeks before Christmas.  Hubby had to go into work today and now he’s getting sent back to Singapore, so there goes my second set of hands.  And now I am starting to see why I don’t get everything accomplished that I’d like to.  Sigh.  I’m hoping he can help me get the wall oven installed tonight.  That thing’s a beast!

Actually, I’m still really excited about 2016.  More than half of the cabinets are assembled.  I would have done all of them, but I’m running out of room.  I took the Christmas tree down yesterday, on the 12th day of Christmas, because my kids insisted it stay up until then.  People who stop by my house can now see my vision for the kitchen.  Finally!!!  All the kids are in school today for the first time in a month.  Everything is good.  Well hubby is

If you’d like to follow along with the kitchen (or bathroom, because it’s still not finished either) progress, then check me out on Instagram and Facebook.  Today’s adventure was picking up 120 cases of Girl Scout cookies in my Honda Pilot.  Never a dull moment around here, that’s for sure.