Let the Games Begin

Moving mistake #398... don't go back to work the day after you move.  Despite my compulsion for no clutter and my need to do everything NOW, I find places to hide the boxes and I don't fully move into our new house.  My workday is long and I convince myself there is no battery life left to unpack at the end of the day.  

So the cure for this is to start renovating.  Ironically, the room that got unpacked right away (the kitchen) gets packed back up.  I have just as much kitchen stuff as everything else combined. When I save out a few vital kitchen items, it's shocking to see how little you need by way of appliances, dishes, etc. to get by.  After 13 1/2 hours at Lowes, I BELIEVE I have successfully ordered my cabinets and chosen granite counters.  The young gal who helps me put together the design is still speaking to me without gritted teeth when I leave. We have 4 weeks to tear out our kitchen and prepare for the new cabinets.  I post our old oven and stove and sink on FB Marketplace and they sell quickly.  The $150 is a balm for my anxiety around the chaos that now exists in the house - it's actually $100 as one person was to Venmo me but stiffed me instead.  I am holding a soft spot in my heart that they just forgot and the $50 is still coming my way.  

The kitchen is full of issues.  There are two very old toe heaters under the cabinets, one hooked into our hot water baseboard system and both on mystery circuits we struggle to find.  There are switches without apparent outputs, orphaned outlets without known breakers. The wall behind the fridge is crammed with the regular and generator panels and generator control box.  No wires shall this way run. There are holes in the floor and the ceiling along with an adjoining mouse nests.  

The pedestal base of our base cabinets is 21" and our hardwood stops anywhere from 22-24" from the walls. There are two vents whose only purpose is to bring ice cold air into the house since they don't connect to anything other than the outside. The walls are plywood, covered by patches of a thin but mighty luan-type product that is very poorly caulked, overlapped, glued with construction adhesive, and screwed in (screw heads then plastered smooth).  Just to be sure the walls don't walk away, I guess.  I am prying at it just before having to head out for a work appointment when a piece shatters off and goes well into my pinky. Stitches ensue. 

I order a sink from Wayfair and the FRAGILE box gets drop kicked off the back of the delivery truck. Wayfair thought they were being so kind offering to let me keep the sink if they wacked 20% off the price.  It takes 2 full months of back and forth to change our double ovens from pick up to delivery, since we bought it on close-out.

Somehow I got suckered into committing to a granite at Lowe's... I know, I know. I call the measurers but they insist I can't view the slab (must choose my counters from a 1 sf sample in-store.  I call the fabricators and they tell me to go to Lowe's and ask for a contact person.  Lowe's gives me some woman's cell private phone number across the country, then when I call back they tell me (in so many words) they are tired of thinking of a solution and please go away.  Finally the fabricators find a contact and a slab viewing is arranged. Last time Trent and I went to a slab viewing we both developed low blood sugar and started speaking in tongues before we found the discounted slabs we wanted in the giant warehouse. When Trent and I take a field trip down past Boston to the warehouse, we are told we only have a few slabs of granite and quartz we can choose from.  Period.  We strategize how to get out of this contract all the way home.

Our half bath becomes the temporary kitchen and I joke that if the toilet worked we'd never have to leave the room since laundry is in here too.  Having one plug may hinder utility though. The new cabinets arrive and the delivery drivers don't want to bring them inside.  It's about to rain.  I convince them to shuffle in the medium base cabinets and I am able to bring in those more manageable-sized boxes.  The two largest boxes, floor-to-ceiling cabinets that weigh well over 200 pounds, are left outside and are ruined. Four other cabinets are riddled with multiple deep scratches and/or black paint splotches and two cabinets are ordered incorrectly and all need to be replaced. 

We move our old steel cabinets outside in order to get the new cabinets in the house.  It goes against every shred of decorum I have left. The old cabinets work on their sun tans outside for weeks before the rest are eventually picked up or we lug them to the dump.  The neighbors, who already practice northern (lack of) hospitality, are stopping and pointing. Our driveway is just a sign of my chaotic, scrambled mind while inside we try to squeeze around boxes. There is seemingly no end in sight as we await the replacement cabinets, the granite fabricators, fixing and retrofitting, and Trent to run the electric. Soffit was removed, luan and construction adhesive taken off, ceiling patched and skim coated, and most of the kitchen electric breakers were identified. I am starting to not hate (like is a strong word) sandwiches. Although since early September we get by with easy meals, sometimes I feel the need to prove something to someone out there in the universe and I whip up something fancy... you know, saute on the dryer in the instapot or bake a pie on the toilet in the air fryer. But I want a quasi-functional kitchen by Christmas.

Spoiler... it does not happen.