We are coming to the end of of our home renovation nightmare.
On Monday, we ordered tile for the entryway, dining room and kitchen, and carpet for the living room and hallway. I was hopeful we'd be able to put our furniture back by Chanukah (December 11) -- but my husband insists that we (meaning I) finish painting the rest of the house before the floor is installed. And I can't do that until he finishes the drywall patches.
We're having family over for a holiday dinner on December 23. That is, if we do have our dining room table and china cabinet back up by then. And that can't happen until the floor has been installed.
My life since this renovation is like an Escher drawing. No matter how close I feel to the end of this journey, it isn't actually in sight.
There's still a lot of fine-tuning to be done to the kitchen: the microwave hood needs to be installed, the cabinets look like they need another round of protective coating, there's hardware waiting to be stuck to the drawers and doors, etc. But we're no longer on a steady diet of Lean Cuisine and takeout. I've been cooking again, and it feels great.
However, the near-completion of the kitchen just reminded me of what a time-suck this renovation has been. I have been telling myself that the reason I've not been able to complete tasks as quickly as I expect has been that hours I would have been working have been spent dealing with the details of living in a house that's been torn apart -- and the energy it is taking to put it back together again.
I expected that getting the kitchen to this point would give me back more of my personal time, but it just increased the urge to get this thing FINISHED so we could get our lives back. And so I was saddled with more tasks -- some pleasant and some not as much fun as you would think:
- I had to unpack and replace all the kitchen stuff that had been sitting in cartons for several months. (You have NO IDEA how good that felt. Pleasant.)
- The packing gave me an opportunity to do some necessary cleaning out of old canned goods, herbs and spices... so now every grocery excursion turns into a quest to re-stock the pantry. (Mundane. And costly.)
- The new cabinet configuration gives me less storage near the stove for items I need at hand when cooking. I purchased a new spice rack that can be displayed attractively on the counter. (Pleasant, but I spent more than I'd planned.)
- While I was at it, I got rid of our old knives and bought a new set of Henckels that was on sale at Costco. (Very pleasant. And I spent less than I'd planned.)
We designed the kitchen with the idea that family and friends could sit at the peninsula and socialize while I'm cooking -- even the earliest renderings included three stools. With the dining room table (my usual workspace) still disassembled in our garage, I had been looking forward to setting up shop at the counter. However, in all our planning, I'd never thought to actually price the cost of barstools. I figured I'd just find something appropriate at Cost Plus or Pier One and call it a day. I budgeted $150 for three stools.
Someone should have told me that I could expect to pay $80-$120 per stool. Or that they come in two heights. We purchased three $99 models at Cost Plus, brought them home and assembled the first one, only to discover that it was too tall. That's when I realized that I needed to look at chairs described as counter stools, or with a specified height of 24".
I managed to move my workspace from the coffee table and couch to the new counter, but had to work standing up. It was better for my back, but hell on my feet. What followed was a 10-day quest to find counter stools that didn't cost an arm and a leg.
Every store I visited cost more than the previous one. Pottery Barn's stools are $220. There were beautiful ones at Crate and Barrel that started around $300. I drove up to Santa Clarita, where there is a store that sells nothing but barstools and billiard tables -- their huge selection ran between $200-$400.
Costco sells an attractive counterstool in a two-pack for around $200, but then we would be stuck with either two stools or four (and we had space for three). My Twitter friend @Trianglman referred me to a site with a ton of stools -- but none of the ones I liked came in that 24" height.
Then I remembered a store called Urban Home, which carries furniture similar to Pottery Barn and Crate & Barrel but costs quite a bit less. That's where I found a discontinued 24" stool that had the right look... and a sale price of just $60. Victory.
So there's another little detail out of the way, and only slightly over my original budget. I have yet to add in the cost of all the time I spent looking for it.
I should feel less stressed... but just as I feel the pressure to get the house done before Christmas, I have clients who have patiently held onto work while I've been sorting through all of this. They also want their projects done so they can relax and enjoy their holidays.
Normal life will have to wait.
