THE KITCHEN PROJECT

.
There will likely be other kitchen projects in our future, but this is the project because we’ve been talking about it for so long.  I think we have outlined our plans to everyone who has set foot in our house since we moved in, but the real thing has been slow in coming . . .

Some people put a premium on practicality, or frugality or any number of other admirable values.  I would like to say I’m a practical person, but truthfully what I want most is inspiration.  Our kitchen came with counters that were white with gold and brown flecks in them, and besides looking perpetually grimy, they were decidedly uninspiring.  I felt sure that I would enjoy spending time in the kitchen ever so much more when the speckled countertops were gone.  I had a deeply-felt need to be rid of them.  They were bringing me down.

Sometimes it seems silly to be affected so much by such a little thing.  At other times, the little things seem more important than anything else at all.

We pitched our project to a friend who didn’t know us as well at the time as he does now.  He thought it sounded like fun.  It sounded like a lot of work to us, but what did we know?  We went to him because we knew there was no way we could do it on our own.  He was the expertise, and we were asking him to give up his free time to work in our kitchen.  If he said it was going to be fun, we were in no position to disagree. 

Halfway through this enterprise, he finished making a cut in the slab of wood that was about to be our new countertop.  “My dad showed me how to do this when I was fifteen,” he said as the saw ground to a stop.  “It looked like fun – mostly because if you have a reason to use this trick, it means you’re working on a fun project.”  He grinned.

That seemed like proof, if by then we needed any, that we had the right man for the job.

He worked with Mark (while I offered little more than moral support) for parts of four days.  At the end there was a fine layer of sawdust over everything and we had worked ourselves deeply into his debt.

And our kitchen had become much more beautiful.  I am feeling inspired already.