Just to the right in this photo is the rest of a very large (23′ x 17′) room, so the kitchen itself is closed into this very small corner by the wall and the peninsula. It is a crazy design, but I guess kitchens were built only as work areas back in 1980. Too bad only one person can work in there at one time. It was a constant frustration for us. You want to see me going insane? Making Christmas Dinner in here! Ugh!!

In the next photo you can see the peninsula with the bulkhead or…what is this called?…soffit? above it. I think there were originally cabinets attached there. Wow, can’t imagine how closed-in the kitchen must have felt when they were still there! Don’t you love the old-newspaper-looking wallpaper? (because oh yes, we want to draw attention to these useless empty soffits along the ceiling- pfft!)

So, I spent years planning and designing what I dreamed of having in this room. Ikea has an online planner that lets you lay out cabinets and appliances to get a feel for how things would fit and how it would look. I tried a few different combinations, but I knew I wanted an open kitchen with a huge island. This is the basic idea I had:

It’s hard to see in the ‘before’ photos, but the original kitchen had a pocket door opening on the wall where the stove is in this plan (into the dining room), and another one where the wide doorway is shown here farther along that wall (leading into the hallway). We decided to take out both pocket doors (they no longer functioned anyway) and make one wider opening instead.

Over the years, we made a few changes to try to make it a bit more comfortable. We changed the light fixtures, painted over the wallpaper and the walls, and changed out the ugly old light switches and plugs. We replaced the old stove and fridge at different times when they died on us. This is how the room looked the night before ‘demo day’. Of course, it’s empty because we had packed everything away already.

In this next photo, you can see that our contractor had already taken out the small pocket door and widened the opening. This was to make it easier to unload the furniture before demo.

On the wall to the right in this next photo, you can see one of the three windows along this wall. It’s a very bright room with lots of natural light. (and little Molly who always seems to get into the photos) but this was in the evening with not much light for photos.

Finally- DEMO DAY! Here’s me taking a few (pathetic) swings at the hated bulkhead/soffit box-thingy over the peninsula. It was nice to get the chance to wreck that thing finally:-)

Here’s how the room looked after the first day of hammering, ripping and sawing. The huge hole in the wall is where the other pocket door was removed. This has become a solid wall, as later photos will show. The dining room became our makeshift kitchen area, but at this point it was a disaster area too.

Next came the electrical work, so lots of drywall was torn out, and the new section of wall was framed in. You can see where the ceiling is being cut up to put in the new pot lights.

By Day 4, all of the flooring had been torn up. We were conflicted about taking out all of the hardwood floor, but we couldn’t come up with a good way of saving it without having an odd transition into the kitchen area and we didn’t want to try to match the wood since it has yellowed quite a bit from light exposure, and there were areas where the finish had worn off (under my office chair from the casters- guilty!) We decided to go with cork for the whole room, which of course added more $$ to the job…like everything does!

By Day 11, we had new drywall all over the place and things were looking much cleaner.

Day 16 and we have a new sub floor and the footings for the base cabinets are being installed.

Base cabinets and the island!

Day 28 was pretty exciting- granite countertops! Oh my gosh the island looks MASSIVE!

Then we had a visit from the plumber and we’re back to having running water. We had a filtered water tap and a soap dispenser added too. We love our new pull out sprayer faucet and the new sinks!

Subway tile backsplash with glass tile accent strip. I agonized over the grout colour and finally decided on Delorean Gray. It turned out exactly like I wanted:-) Just enough colour to show the pattern but not too graphic.

The new cork floors! I love the pattern- it’s impossible to see crumbs:-) We decided to go ahead and replace our foyer flooring at the same time. Renovations are like a virus, once you get started they keep spreading!

Foyer Before: Ugly, damaged parquet floor:

Foyer after: Lovely cork, yeay! It feels so good on the feet too.

Here’s where we are today (Day- oh sheesh, let me count- yep, it’s Day 58!) We have some of the cabinet doors and our garbage and recycling pull-outs are installed. The crown moldings are up (but not yet painted) and we are still waiting for the island cabinet doors, the cabinet and drawer handles, the glass fronted cabinet doors and glass shelving, the baseboards and a fresh coat of paint on the walls,  the painter to finish the ceiling, the electrician to install the ceiling lights…then I get to decide about window coverings.

Along this set of base cabinets there are two which we decided to change to drawers. Base cabinets drive me crazy- I can never find anything wayyy in the back of them. The drawers are built but not yet switched out.

The upper cabinets on either side of the sink will have glass fronted doors, glass shelves and interior lighting. We decided on a cross-hatch patterned glass to disguise the cabinet contents a bit.

The hood fan still has the protective paper on it and it still needs the cover for the chimney pipe. Stuff is all over the counters because we aren’t using the cabinets yet. Hate the mess but we are LOVING the kitchen already!

Later today I think we are getting the cherry doors installed on the island and all of the cabinet handles put on. At that point I think I will feel safe enough to start bringing everything back in and organizing the cabinets. We’re on the home stretch- more photos to come soon!

If you’re like me and you want to see all the nitty-gritty details and lots more photos, I’ve been photo blogging the whole renovation since we started in a set on Flickr. You can check it out by clicking HERE There’s an option there to watch them as a slideshow but then you don’t get to see my rivetingly interesting written commentary

Comments welcome!

Why does it have to be so HARD?

The weather cooperated yesterday afternoon, so we packed up a picnic,  loaded our bikes onto the back of the car, and went bike riding on Westham Island. Lots of farms-  not terribly interesting though,  so we packed up again and headed over to the dyke in Richmond and rode along there for a while. There are picnic tables dotted along the dyke so we stopped at one for our picnic before heading back. It was really nice to get out and do something active and fun together. It doesn’t happen often enough. Daily life gets in the way and it’s so easy to just fall into the routine. Days like yesterday remind me that life is short and we should seize the day with the ones we love. I know it sounds cliche…

Which brings me to my Mom. She’s got some kind of dementia, probably Alzheimers disease. About 18 months ago she saw a specialist who thought she probably had early Alzheimers, but we took her to another specialist for a second opinion and he disagreed. Either way, there was really nothing to do at that point other than keeping her on the medication (which may or may not help in the early stages) and try to support her as much as possible. Since then her memory has gotten quite a bit worse. She calls me regularly with questions and gets confused about paperwork and things that come in the mail. I’ve taken over her medical insurance claims because she was getting them mixed up. Luckily, all of her other bills are paid via pre-authorized payment. The one thing she is still doing is paying her Visa bill each month. All her life she has saved all her receipts- writing the date at the top and then checking them against her statement each month. Lately she’s been having more difficulty with it. She frequently calls Visa to send her copies of certain bills she can’t find, but for the most part she’s managing that pretty well.

My big concern about her is that she is still driving. Last year after she had 2 accidents close together and her car was wrecked,  then had eye surgery and couldn’t drive for at least 6 weeks we thought we could convince her to give up driving but it didn’t work. After her eye healed, she convinced my brothers to take her car shopping (in hindsight they should have refused) and she bought a new car. She can no longer drive anywhere she hasn’t been many times, and even needs written directions to get to my house reliably. Recently she was supposed to follow me in her car to go to a specialist appointment, but as soon as I got into my car she didn’t know where I was. She had no idea what my car looked like, so she just went home and then was upset with me because she said I didn’t tell her to follow me (of course I did). So- she still drives to her credit union and to stores she knows and to my house. She says she doesn’t drive very often, but I wish she would make the decision to stop herself. I think this is going to be a big problem because she doesn’t see the danger. Maybe it’s going to take her getting lost before she realizes she has to stop. I just hope it’s not an accident that decides for her.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?
I learned to make soap.

2. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

No, I don’t make any actual new year’s resolutions. This year I do hope to get back into better physical shape. I really dropped the ball on fitness in 2009.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Yes, my niece had her third son.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
No, and I’m very grateful for that.

5. What countries did you visit last year?

No travel for me last year, unless you count hops over the line to Bellingham and Seattle. My sister and I did a 2 day road trip to shop in Seattle and it was so much fun. We haven’t had time alone together to reconnect in years and we laughed and cried. I want to do it every year now, at least!

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
A full-time-employed husband. He wants that as much as I do though. Here’s hoping that 2010 brings a great career opportunity for him.

7. What dates from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The actual date numbers don’t stick in my mind, but the weekend garage sale I had in March to raise money for the Weekend to End Breast Cancer was crazy. I almost killed myself and Jon too, but we raised $1700 so I consider it a great success:-) The actual weekend walk in August was an amazing experience. The day my daughter surprised me by turning up back home suddenly after being in Calgary for several months. The day that a doctor told me and my mom that she probably had early stage Alzheimer’s Disease. May 1st, the day that me and my family helped my mom move into her new apartment.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Finishing the Weekend to End Breast Cancer walk of 60 km over 2 days, and raising over $2000 for the BC Cancer Foundation.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Neglecting my physical health by avoiding regular exersize.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Nothing serious, thankfully.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
The soaping supplies from a soapmaker who was going out of business. It was an incredible deal and it really got me jump started with my soapmaking!

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My brother’s. He fundraised and then rode his bike over 400km in one day from Kelowna to Delta to raise awareness and money for the Canadian Cancer Society in the Ride 2 Survive. It was an amazing accomplishment.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

I wouldn’t go quite as far as appalled or depressed, but I was pretty irritated with the moderators of a certain soapmakers’ forum for banning me. Get over yourselves, seriously. Your loss

My son gave me a few moments to be appalled about here and there (what teenager doesn’t?) and when he was struggling with anxiety and depression early in the year it was pretty sad for me, but I don’t get depressed easily.

My mom’s ongoing struggles with her memory make me sad. I try not to get depressed over it though, just try to help as much as I can.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Most of it went for just keeping us going day to day, but another large portion went to get me set up for making soap as well.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
I don’t think anything was quite THAT exciting in 2009, but selling nearly $500 in products at one small craft fair I did this fall was exciting for me.

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?
I don’t know that it will stick in my mind for always, but Adam Lambert singing ‘Mad World’ on AI was pretty cool. He made the show fun to watch last year.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder? A little sadder.
b) thinner or fatter? Fatter.
c) richer or poorer? poorer (we’re talking money, right?)

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
I’ll say it again- physical activity. Also- wish I’d done more fun things with Jon. Life can get kind of routine at times and we forget to enjoy our time together and just do fun stuff.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Eating. Complaining.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With my family at our house, we had everyone here for dinner.

21. Did you fall in love in 2009?

No, but I stayed in love.

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Definitely LOST. Can’t wait for it to start again next week. It’s the last season though:-( I also had a lot of fun watching American Idol with my son, Devon. It’s our mom-and-son bonding time. We don’t get much of that anymore so I really enjoy it. Other than that, I don’t really watch TV anymore.

23. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Hate is a very strong word. I don’t have true hate for anyone. There are a few irritating people I try to avoid though.

24. What was the best book you read?
The Time Travelers Wife. Absolutely pulled me in. I didn’t want it to end, but couldn’t stop reading.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?
I don’t really discover music. That’s Jon’s area:-)

26. What did you want and get?
A new washer and dryer- front loaders, they rock.

27. What did you want and not get?
A new kitchen. (not expected, but still wanted!)

28. What was your favorite film of this year?
Nothing sticks out in my mind other than Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I don’t think it was the best of the series but I’m a big HP fan, so I enjoyed it.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 46. Jon took me out for dinner to the Washington Avenue Grill. It was lovely.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
If I could have had the kitchen renovated, or finished all the half-done projects on the house.

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?
I’m pathetic in this department, as all who know me are aware. I spent most of the year in my jammies working from home, or in my comfy jeans- mainly because I’ve gained weight and don’t feel good about how I look

32. What kept you sane?
Being loved by a wonderful man.  Having a hobby that I love. Working from home.

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Embarrassingly, Adam Lambert. I know, he’s young enough to be my son and he’s gay but he’s adorable and his voice is incredible *shrug*

I also really admire Brad Pitt for all he does for people in need. That makes him pretty fanciable, and he doesn’t look half bad either, let’s face it .

34. What political issue stirred you the most?
I really wish I were more interested in politics, but I’m just not. It was pretty exciting to see Obama getting inaugurated, for many reasons.

35. Who did you miss?
I missed Jon’s parents, who live in England. I wish we could see them more often. I also missed my dad as always. I can’t believe it’s been 11 years since he died.

36. Who was the best new person you met?

Nobody in particular sticks out in my mind. I guess I don’t meet too many new people.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009.

Make sure the people you love know it, and show them often. You never know when you might not be able to tell them again. (related to my mom’s memory problems)

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

??

Last week was my birthday. I don’t get excited about them anymore. Who wants to be older anyway? (besides my teens that is!) Jon is always sweet and finds a way to do something special for me. This year he gave me a card, inside he listed reasons why he loves me. It is just beautiful and something I will treasure. We went out for dinner too and spoiled ourselves with 3 courses. We don’t do that often, so it was a real treat.

My friend Yvette made my day by having a bouquet of pink roses delivered to me! Wow….somehow flowers just make me feel so loved and appreciated. Maybe because they seem like a decadent gift, something I wouldn’t buy for myself.

My kids, on the other hand, were pretty lame about my birthday this year. I try not to let it bother me, but I wish they could put a bit of effort into it. My son remembered and wished me a happy birthday, and my daughter bought me a generic card. Is it too much to hope for a thoughtful gift? Nothing expensive. Just something that shows they thought about my birthday for more than 15 seconds, you know? They could make me something or clean the house for me, or even bake me a cake— but they just don’t. Some years they do better, but maybe it’s just their ages. They are still so wrapped up in themselves that they don’t think about me much anymore. My daughter spent days on end planning her friend’s birthday party and creating a slideshow video for her…..I got a card (not even a MOM card, just a generic card you could give to someone you work with!) That shows you where I rank on her priority list right now! I’m sure when it’s my son’s girlfriend’s birthday, he’ll be stressing for days about what to get for her. (and asking me to buy it since he has no job!)

I guess that’s why I try to keep myself so busy all the time. I wonder how they would feel if all I did for their birthdays is give them a hug or a card?

I don’t have many keepsakes, but one thing I do have is a collection of concert ticket stubs from the 80′s. My friends and I went to so many shows: Loverboy, Cheap Trick, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart (3 nights in a row!), The Boomtown Rats. I even found a stub from a Kool And The Gang concert! I think I suffered some permanent hearing loss at an April Wine concert my friend dragged me to.

I remember when the Jackson’s Victory Tour was coming to Vancouver in 1984. The ticket prices were incredibly high ($40 was a lot of money back then when I was making $4 an hour working part time!) I can’t even remember who I went to the show with, but from our seats…way up in the second level, the figures on stage looked TINY and the sound quality was terrible in BC Place. There were big projection screens at the sides of the stage, but even without looking at them you could see that Michael took over the stage. He was magnetic to watch in person. I don’t remember many details from the show, except when he sang “She’s Out Of My Life” and he came down some stairs at the front of the stage and sang directly to a fan. The crowd went wild and he sounded like he was crying by the end of the song.

Whatever else is said about him, he was an incredible talent and entertainer.  I feel sad that his life became such a circus. Thinking about him over the past few days I thought about all the freedoms I have always had that he could never hope to enjoy: a simple day at the beach hanging out with friends, a night out seeing a show or dancing in a night club, walking to the store to buy an ice cream cone, going for a bike ride alone, going camping…the list goes on. The price of fame is much too high in my opinion. I can only hope that his children will someday enjoy those small freedoms. I’m sure that would have made Michael very happy.

By the time she married at 30, she really didn’t know how to cook, clean, sew or take care of a home. She had to learn by herself, and I think it was mostly via trial and error. She told me once my father went fishing and brought home his catch and she sat down and cried. She had no idea how to prepare or cook the fish.

Eventually, my mom became a decent cook. She made simple meals like roast beef, boiled potatoes and a plain veg, or chicken pot pie. She overcooked most meats and I think that’s why I grew up disliking meat dishes. She was very good at making soups and she taught herself to bake bread. I have fond memories of sitting beside the table watching my mom knead a huge lump of bread dough bending down to scoop flour out of the huge container on the floor. She did it all by ‘feel’, no measurements needed! Pretty impressive. She was also very good at extending ingredients to feed many on a tight budget. I’ve always been impressed with how my parents managed to raise 5 children on one salary and end up mortgage free in their early 50′s.

Once I became an adult, I realized there were a few things I could improve on from my mom’s way of cooking and baking. Pastry is a major one. I remember learning to make an apple pie in class at school. I came home and made it for the family and everyone exclaimed about the incredibly flaky, light crust. Even though my mom made pies regularly, she overworked the pasty dough, kneading it until it was smooth with warm hands and re-rolling it over and over. She didn’t worry about the fat being chilled or the water being ice cold. Her pastry didn’t taste bad, but it was pretty tough to get a fork through!

So, here is the blueberry pie I made last night. I love the pastry star cut-outs for the top crust. Not my idea, but looks great anyway. I could never get my head around doing a proper lattice top. I had fun making it, using a combination of several recipes I found online. We didn’t wait for it to cool completely, so it was pretty juicy, but I must admit it tasted fabulous. How can you lose when you’re using delicious local berries (these were frozen from last Summer)  This is what’s left this morning.

I was doing some searching online for tips for decreasing grocery costs. One of the things that was mentioned consistently was that people who make many trips to the store tend to spend more money on groceries over all. I think we are pretty good about trying to stock up when we see things on sale, and buying staples in bulk when it saves money (we’ve found the bulk buying isn’t always the less expensive choice) but we haven’t taken the time to plan ahead. I don’t tend to bother with reading the weekly sale flyers either.

I’d love to try doing some bulk cooking, such as making large batches of foods that can be frozen ahead of time to speed meal preparation. I like the idea of cooking up chicken breasts and cutting them into chunks and freezing them, pre-cooking ground beef and freezing it in recipe-sized portions, making homemade meatballs, maybe a couple of fully prepared meals once a month like lasagne or shepherds pie. It sure would be great to be able to pull something like that out of the freezer on a busy day and have dinner made. Something else I might try is preparing all the veggies and meat for a slow cooker meal and freezing it- then it’s ready to throw in the slow cooker in the morning before work with very little same-day prep. The trouble is finding a free day to devote to shopping for all the ingredients and then doing all the cooking!

This summer I’m going to try doing some canning. I’ve been making homemade jam for a few years now, but I’d like to try canning tomatoes and maybe tomato sauce and salsa too. I’m going to try to find a good pasta sauce recipe and try to can some of that too. Maybe if my tomato plants do well enough there will be enough to can!

The weather has been gorgeous off and on recently. I forced myself to weed the front garden and get rid of as many dandelions as I could from the lawn so our yard isn’t a complete embarrassment. Devon has been mowing the lawn which is wonderful. Last year I did most of the mowing- not my favourite chore! Last year I also grew some amazing Heirloom Cherry Tomatoes in a pot on my back deck. They grew from a tiny seed kit that my mom gave me, into a giant 4-5 foot bush. I’ve never grown anything from seeds before (other than some sunflowers with the kids) so it was really exciting. The crop wasn’t huge, but I didn’t know anything about fertilizing. I just planted them (in a pot that was much too small) and watered them.

This year I decided to try growing proper tomatoes in containers. I saw an infomercial about an upside-down tomato planter kit. It looked like a great idea. No staking, no worries about pests, no huge deck planters to step around. I started by doing a google search and found some how-to videos on YouTube. Yesterday, I made one out of a 5-gallon plastic Home Depot bucket. It’s not the prettiest planter, but the plastic is thick and the handle is metal and will hold a lot of weight. I also found pictures of planters made from regular hanging-basket type planters, but it didn’t look like enough soil for a tomato plant. I think you could grow tiny cherry tomatoes in those. Here is a pretty one with herbs planted on the top.

So, first you cut a hole into the bottom of the bucket. I would suggest making the smallest hole that will fit the plant through. Two inches in diameter. I made a hole nearly 4 inches and I had to rig something to prevent the root ball falling back through.

After the hole is cut out, take a small tomato plant wrap it gently around the stem with a coffee filter or piece of landscape fabric. This will hold the dirt back and prevent it coming out of the hole. I chose a tomato variety labelled ‘Patio’ because they grow a smaller fruit than something like a Beefsteak.

Then place the stem through the hole. Hang the bucket on something low so you can then fill the bucket with potting soil, packing it gently around the root ball first, then filling the whole bucket.  I also mixed in some compost from the bottom of our compost bin. I think I will put the lid on the bucket and open it when watering, so it doesn’t get flooded with run-off from the deck roof when it rains. You could plant flowers or herbs in the top instead, but I don’t think I will this time.

Hang the planter somewhere so it will get sunshine at least 50% of the time. Water it well from the top of the open bucket until it seeps through the bottom.

The soil needs to be kept evenly moist and container tomatoes need regular feeding. I did a bit of research and there are several options suggested. I’m going to try using compost tea made from my own compost. That is- soaking a bucket full of compost in water for a week, and then using the drained liquid diluted in water to feed the plant at  each watering. Apparently, tomatoes need lots of nutrients and your crop will be small  if you don’t feed them. Someone suggested mixing crushed egg shells into the soil to add more calcium. I also read that you should water tomato plants at the roots, rather than sprinkling the tops getting the leaves wet, so this should be a great way to water them.

I also planted some regular right-side-up tomatoes, so we’ll see how the crops compare. In the pots, I’ve got one called Super Fantastic which grows large beefsteak-like fruit.

The smaller one is a Roma which grows good tomatoes for making sauce. It will be fun to watch them grow and exciting to taste the fruit. Wish me luck. I will post updates as they (hopefully) grow:-) Would love to hear suggestions from anyone with experience. I’m a total gardening newbie!

I’ve also fallen behind in posting new auctions for my fundraising. I was put off a little when I sent a message to an Etsy seller asking her if she would like to donate something and she replied calling me a spammer and basically tore a strip off me and threatened to report me to Etsy administrators. She said that her sister had died of cancer and that cancer isn’t something that is appropriate to ‘cold call’ about. Needless to say, I was disappointed and felt a little deflated. I couldn’t even reply to apologize because she ended her message with ‘do not contact me again’

*sigh* Well, I’ve otherwise had great, positive responses to any requests I’ve made but I feel I can no longer send direct messages to sellers. This was the way I’d received most of the donations, so things have slowed down quite a bit on that front.

I’ll have to come up with some new fundraising ideas soon. I’ve got about 3 more months to raise the remaining $916 I need for Jon and I to participate in the Weekend To End Breast Cancer in August. I’ve raised $3084 so far! Some ideas I found online that sounded interesting:

-Bowling party (get lanes to donate towards it and charge admission)

-Brunch for Boobies (invite friends and family for brunch and take donations)

Anyone else have any good ideas that have worked for you? I normally work from home, but when I go into the office I’m planning to bring some homemade goodies to share for donations- that usually goes over well. I missed an opportunity yesterday when I worked at the office. Our staffing has been very high since this whole Swine Flu thing started. I could have made some great donations but I thought of it too late to get any baking done!

I find being sick SO BORING. Glad it only happens once in a while…back to the couch now I guess…