I can set the time on my microwave and assume it will stay set now unless the hydro blips out. This is a small detail in the grand scheme of things, but even grand schemes are impacted by details. During our kitchen reno, I traipsed up and down the cellar stairs multiple times to flip the flippin’ breaker during the span of time it takes to reheat a plate of leftovers. The microwave was plugged into a different outlet during the renovations and therefore even more prone to tripping the breaker. But, even when it was plugged into its usual place in the old kitchen, it would throw the breaker if the heater was on in the back room. Prior to renos, how often has one of us dashed to stop the microwave when we remembered that the heater was on? And how often did it require a trip to the basement in the dark because that light too was on the same breaker? So, it was futile to set the time on the microwave clock. It would be blanked to zeros in short order as surely as the day is long.
The electrician looked somewhat askance when I told him that we want all the receptacles in the new kitchen on their own breaker. He even mildly double-checked that rather significant detail with Fred who readily confirmed our plan.
I am still decompressing after the massive disruption that a kitchen renovation requires. Seeing our dear old kitchen gutted to her very bones was a bit sad. Her stone walls held firm as the excavator brought the big shovel down with incredible force time and time again to remove an old cement pad on her perimeter. That concrete pad proved to be more solid than it looked despite all its cracks and crevices. Eventually they removed it all and dug a hole for the new foundation.
A stone mason cut a wide opening through the exterior stone wall to create the entrance into what eventually became the new kitchen. I made myself scarce on the workers-in-my-space days, but Fred said he looked in towards the house at one point while the mason was cutting the stone, and the dust billowing out from the house had the look of smoke from a fire. Sadly, not all the dust billowed outside. It found its way throughout the house, particularly in the basement, settling onto jars and supplies that are kept down there. But the wall held firm, and we had our passageway into the area being added on.
We settled in for the long haul and set up a makeshift kitchen in our entryway. There was something novel about having all our kitchenware condensed to a small cupboard (though the novelty wore thin by the end). Mon chéri dubbed the improvised kitchen our cabin. The hot plate did fine for most things but failed at popping popcorn. I resorted to hauling the popcorn pot and unpopped kernels to my sons’ homes and my brother’s place to get a bowl of properly popped corn or my sister popped some in her stir-crazy so we could have our favourite Sunday night snack. There was no running water in the entryway, so we used a large basin in the bathtub for our dishwashing. I took to filling my water bottle at the water hydrant by the horse pasture, and my little granddaughter would ask for my “horse water”.
A new sugar shack facility was being built at the same time as our kitchen was being done. The guys set aside some of the barn boards from the old sugar shack for me, and I pulled all the nails out of them and cleaned them before stacking them with spacers so they could dry out. These boards, along with one of the old hand hewn beams, were used for the ceiling in the new kitchen. The carpenter crew worked hard. Marrying the crooked corners and sloped lines of an old stone house with the 90 degree angles and straight lines of a laser level had its challenges. These guys delivered. Did they scratch their heads and exchange bemused glances at our (my) requests? Can’t say I blame them if they did.
Our cabinet guy was an Old Order craftsman that Fred knew through farming custom work. He caught our vision and readily implemented our wishes, constructing cabinets and shelving from pictures I printed off for him. One of his (and my) favourite aspects of the project was building doors out of the sugar shack barn boards modeled after a typical door in a barn. These doors were used to enclose a storage closet that was built into one of the two doorways that went into the bathroom (thereby eliminating access to the bathroom from the kitchen). He sketched a drawing of the doors on a piece of lumber to show me how they would look and then pieced them together out in the yard. When I told him I’d like the pantry cupboard stained red, he pulled out a deep red sample in jest and half grinned when I said that it was pretty close. He and his crew worked to have us up and limping along with some semblance of a kitchen for Easter weekend.
We had cabinets installed but no countertops or running water in time for our annual Good Friday brunch. Working late on Thursday evening, we got things cleaned up and added makeshift countertops. What fun it was to share this new space with our people. And the crockpots, griddle, coffeepot, and tea kettle – they snugged up contentedly to their very own receptable.
