It is hard to believe that a year ago, this was our kitchen.

Let’s go backwards in time a bit, shall we?

It started with a conversation with a friend and Rugby coach of the Hubby.  She is a carpenter by trade, and we were sharing with her our desire to remodel our kitchen.  The money was in the bank (thanks to refinancing our house), but we just needed to sit down and figure it out.  Our plan was to do it ourselves.  Looking back on it, I understand how how crazy that statement was. 

Our friend who we will call Flipper (a play on her nickname – sticking with the aquatic theme), offered to do it for us.  She was finishing her kitchen, the union had her between jobs, and she wasn’t too keen on returning to working outside in the rain.  She came in, measured, put together a layout, and gave us a bid with time line.  The bid was good, the time line was aggressive (6 weeks) and the layout was perfect. We agreed to everything, and she and her assistant came in to demolish the kitchen.

We were able to live in the house for all but three days of it.  We discovered when she unearthed the linoleum that we had fir floors in the kitchen.  Fir is a softwood.  We know how horrible they are from a wear & tear perspective, but our 1918 house had continuous fir meaning they measured the room, found a tree the right height, and cut the floor boards to fit the wood in continuous slats.  You can’t rip that out.  Because of the treatment they used, we had to be out of the house for 3 days. 

Flipper delivered the kitchen to us two days before Christmas.  We got our Christmas tree the day before and made Christmas dinner in our new kitchen.  As the Hubby says all of the time when people ooh and aah over it, it came in on-time and on-budget.   A pretty remarkable feat in today’s world. 

When she needed a decision, we made it immediately.  If we hadn’t, it would have thrown the schedule off.  When the sub contractors were not meeting time lines, she was busting their ass.  Working with someone who has local experience was the advantage.  She knew which subs to use and which to avoid like the plague.  She warned us up-front when she needed to bring on a person who could be flaky (and there was only one).  And, she all but drove that guy to the house to get the mudding on the drywall done.  He is the guy who can make drywall and lathe & plaster look like they go together.  Flipper made sure we didn’t get held up because of it.

The result was overwhelming. And, a year later, we are still very happy with it.  And, I personally am very happy we can have a normal Christmas this year!