May madness...

Today feels like spring and I certainly hope it sticks around.  Since early April, daily life has been very busy and often unpredictable. "Small" home improvements, meaning small for a home improvement company, began primarily because the timing was right. One of my sons hired a company we used 25 years ago for his kitchen remodel. I liked how things were being handled for him in the initial stages and decided to see if my jobs could be piggybacked. We live three miles apart, I was envisioning my jobs being tied into his schedule, and they have been to a degree. All is going well but like every home improvement since Wilma Flintstone asked Fred to put a window over her sink in the cave, the process is taking longer than expected.

My kitchen facelift consists of a new cabinet, new quartz countertops, new cabinet and drawer handles (77 of them!), and a new microwave. I could have done the handles. The new counters are something we began discussing a few years ago. Did I really need them? No, they were on my "someday" list. What spurred all of this in the kitchen was my microwave from 1983. That thing was still working but either had lost some strength or perhaps it just wasn't up to today's standards and therefore directions on a frozen food were never quite right.

The 1983 model was a large countertop microwave. When we had the kitchen remodeled in 1986, a specific contraption was purchased that held the microwave under a cabinet. It had a circulating fan (venting outside is not an option here) and had a light over the stove located below. When we began to discuss the microwave's eventual demise, we wondered what we would do to configure a new one. Nothing about a new one would fit in that previous holder and the unfinished wall would show behind it. Cabinetry could not be matched so I chose plain black to match the new microwave and tie into the routered design on the existing cabinets.

Here is the 1983 microwave followed by the unfinished look of this space with the new cabinet and appliance. Tile in this space should happen in the next few days. The black cabinet had to be recessed to allow the fan to vent. I am happy with the look, it seems like it was a design choice, not a solution that had to be made.

So there is the story: A still working microwave that isn't going to last forever led to a big bucks kitchen facelift! A few hiccups occurred but solutions were found and I am happy even though I still don't have a working sink on the main floor except for my laundry tub. 

I've had lots of exercise going upstairs to use the bathroom as the main floor has been without a toilet for a few weeks. It is a long, boring story not worth mentioning here, but this has been my living room view for a while now.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but a few stories aren't meant to be public yet.  I'm hanging in and hope you are too.