Life in Chaos

We are living in the midst of a full kitchen renovation.

I have planned for months how things would go. I figured it would be like camping in our living room. I thought about things a lot! I did some research, I asked questions from those who have done this before myself, and I thought I was well prepared and made my list. I planned most of my meals. I set up a temporary kitchen in my living room. I started decluttering my kitchen and got rid of anything I never use, I packed many of my things I want to keep. I kept out things I needed for day to day life until the Reno begins. Then I got a call that they can start right away. Oh boy!!! How exciting!!!

Sweet Hubby kindly dumps, I mean packs the rest of the kitchen in the boxes which I had collected just for our Reno and he proceeds to completely empty the kitchen. A crew came later that night and taped off our kitchen entrances with large sheets of plastic and black tape.

The very next day demo begins. They beat and ripped out the old cabinets, countertops, light fixtures. They ripped up old linoleum and flooring. We had some old water damage and the flooring was coming apart in layers. They cut out old drywall and tossed it. We got to see a huge mistake the original builder made. There was an old cast iron kitchen drain pipe going through our main floor joist. The original builder plumber had cut a hole in the main floor joist for a large drain pipe. OY VEY! Why? Our guys cut it out, replaced and reinforced the joist.

The following day they worked on the floor reinforcing all floor joist and laid a brand new subfloor.

So far we have new outlets, new lvp floors, painted walls, recessed lights and the cabinets are going in at this very moment.

We’ve be using our microwave/ convection oven combo, my cheap ($19.99) Walmart brand tiny coffeemaker which uses either ground coffee or any brand of coffee pods like k-cups and the like. Our crown Berkey for filtered water is awesome! My Instant Pot has been awesome also. I’ve made ground beef tacos, frying my beef on the sauté function, I’ve fried turkey bacon, scrambled eggs on saute, and grilled cheese on sauté function. I’ve absolutely fell in love with my Instant Pot during this reno and could probably do paid commercials for them, with all I’ve used my Instant Pot for and fell in love with my Inastant Pot or should I say I have a new found respect for all I can do with that thing.

We’ve have eaten pizza and a few meals we ordered and picked up at a restaurant or fast food. This gets too expensive especially for a large family of mostly boys! Breakfasts have been super simple, cheerios, eggs, fruit, organic breakfast bars, granola, yogurt or leftovers. Lunches have been simple also sandwiches, chips, salads, fruits ( we’ve had bananas, oranges, plums, blueberries, grapefruit and apples.) Dinners have been tacos, canned soups and grilled sandwiches, microwave burgers, microwaved veggies, Pizza establishments we’ve used are Little Caesars and Dominoes, We’ve also bought chick-fil-a and Bojangles. Mostly because they were local, not because they were healthy or anything.

I’ve pretty much went to the grocery store several days in a row. We have a medium sized dormitory refrigerator set up in our living room’s temporary kitchen and an ice maker ( which has been a lifesaver, with our hot southern September days).

My house is about 60 years old, so many updates we’ve done and are doing currently have been sorely needed. Especially the electrical upgrades! I could only use my hairdryer on one outlet in my house. Any other outlet would trip a breaker and turn of the power in half of our house. Frustrating and scary! Every appliance except for our refrigerator has been on power strips which I flip off at night.

That’s all I can remember at the moment. I’m sitting in a very noisy dusty house at the moment while hubby watches college football and the boys and the girl are “gaming”.