Kitchen Reno: Part 6 - Destruction!

This past week, Eric Borman and his crew showed up bright and early, at 8:00 AM, as promised, in order to demolish our old kitchen.  What seems even stranger is that I paid them well to do so, as the terms of my contract required that I make my first installment payment when the work officially began.

Before wrecking our kitchen, they kindly helped my wife, Judy, and me with the disposal of our old stove (it's being replaced and a new one is already ordered) as well as moving our fridge to the auxiliary kitchen.  Well, that is, they tried to move our fridge to the auxiliary kitchen but, as I'd mentioned in an earlier post, they weren't able to do so because of, well, bad planning on my part.  I failed to measure the doorway to the auxiliary kitchen in order to ensure that the fridge would fit through it.  As it turns out, it would not.  But the helpful lads from Borman quickly located an available corner in our dining room, set the fridge there and ran an extension cord to it, taping it securely down to the floor such that no-one will trip over it.  It's almost as though they've done this before.

The stove was placed on our front curbside, from whence it disappeared within a couple of hours, probably having been picked up by some local salvage scrounger(s).  

Our dining room adjoins the kitchen and the entrance between the two has no door, so the Borman team hung a drop sheet over it with a zipper up the middle in order to minimize dust and debris from the kitchen getting into the dining room while still making both rooms accessible.

Then followed a day of incredible banging, grinding and assorted other noises that should never, ever emanate from anyone's kitchen! I can state this with confidence, as these noises did emanate from my kitchen, and the result was not pretty!  The photo at the start of this post basically says it all.

The racket also freaked out our cat, Ebony, just a bit.  She went into hiding for a while, then finally re-appeared when her stomach insisted that it was time to do so.  Her food and water bowls used to be on the floor of our old kitchen but Judy and I wisely chose to move them to the dining room well before Demolition Day so that she could deal with getting used to the new location without also having to deal with the disruption of her home environment at the same time.

I have to hand it to her, she's a fairly resilient feline.  In the early evening, after the workmen had left for the day, she reappeared and gingerly explored what was left of the old kitchen, before finally jumping up onto Judy's lap as she (Judy) sat in her easy chair, the better to let the warmth of her (Judy's) thighs ease her anxieties. Ebony is at an advanced age for cats and, as such, her 15 years' lived experience seem to have given her the serenity to take things more or less in stride.

I also want to mention, in passing, that one of the workmen (Mike) noticed Ebony and asked us whether we wanted her to be kept inside.  I told him that Ebony is very much an outdoor cat and we let her come and go more or less as she pleases.  I have to say that I was impressed that he thought to ask the question.  Our pet is, of course, in no way his responsibility, yet his question implied that, if we had wanted her kept inside, he would be mindful of closing the entrance door behind himself when entering or leaving our house, thus preventing her from running outside.  Bonus points for Mike!

I have to admit that I get a bit of an uneasy feeling as I stare at what's left of our kitchen.  It's been stripped down to the floor boards and insulation.  Even though I know that all of this will be replaced within about four weeks, I can't seem to stop my brain from lamenting, "What have I done?"

Judy and I are now using the auxiliary kitchen and I have to admit that we've already been getting too much takeout food and heat-and-serve meals in the interest of minimizing cooking because most of our regular cooking involves the use of a stove, which we currently lack..

Doing the dishes has become awkward and inconvenient.  We load the used (dirty) dishes into a small plastic tote, carry them down to the laundry room, and then wash them by hand, using the laundry tub.  We set up our dish rack on a folding card table, and the washed dishes go onto the dish rack to await drying.  Because the tap on our laundry tub dispenses only hard water, the dish soap doesn't foam up quite as much as it should, and our glassware and silverware are already looking a bit clouded.  Unfortunately, there is no remedy for this.  We'll just have to live with it until we once again have a functioning "real" kitchen.

I fear that it's going to be a long four weeks!