A kitchen reno, a generous gift and the Dave Ramsey method

A few people have asked me to share about our kitchen renos and I have neglected blogging about it for a while. While I was and am extremely excited about the transformation, there was a part of me that was embarrassed by the process.

You see, in the land of slick mommy blogging, DIY and Pinterest-hacks, it's so much more chic to say "look at this awesome work we did all by ourselves!"

Also, "my three side hustles on Etsy paid for this whole thing!"

... Except neither of those statements are true.

The beautiful work on our kitchen was a pure gift from my in-laws. I am still so deeply humbled by that. They know I had been dreaming about painting the walls for as long as we've lived here (five years now!) and the floor desperately, DESPERATELY needed to be replaced because the tiles were broken or had burn and smoke marks where our old wood stove had been.

Such work, however, always eluded us. Certainly in terms of money - sigh - but also even in terms of time. If it takes a village to raise a child, then it must at least take a city block to redo a kitchen.

So after Isaiah's First Communion, my in-laws stayed for an extra week and poured out their generosity on us. They toiled away at replacing the horrid floor, repainted the watermarked ceiling (a temporary but much-needed update; as the Nester says, "it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful") and primed the walls for us to redo the knotty pine.

Oh yes, and repainted our living room, too. Whew.

My sister-in-law and her husband joined us for the ride, too. She amazingly prepared all the meals for this huge work crew while looking after her six-month old baby (!), since the kitchen in our house was upended. He came at the floor with a crowbar and determination, all the while patiently letting my children in on the action. One of my favourite sights was seeing my brother-in-law standing in the kitchen, painting the ceiling. No ladder or even foot-stool needed. The man is 6"5, I think?, so he could just reach his long arm up with a roller and get 'er done.

And done, it was.

(Sadly, I didn't set up any true "before" pictures on the day of and show progress, but I found some old pictures to give you a sense of the space.)

Here's where our wood stove used to be. Note the broken tiles lining the area around it, and chunks of grout trying to keep it from further crumbling.

And here's the newly opened-up space. Without having to give at least 12 inches of clearance, we can put our table more comfortably in the middle. See that new vinyl click flooring? It cleans like a dream and I even dropped a glass on it and it didn't break. The old tile floor would have done a number on any dish or glass tumbling onto it.

Also, I realize there is still a huge hole here in the wall where the chimney used to be; Patrick is going to repair it during the remainder of the summer, but truly, I just dearly wanted to post these pictures straight away.

Here's Steve, my brother-in-law, pulling back the old floor.

And... surprise! It's hardwood underneath.

I know, right?

Yet we still opted to put the vinyl on top of it because there were odd holes and some shockingly discoloured patches that we just don't have the energy to deal with for the moment.

 Patrick, hard at work installing the floor.

Here's another "before" picture of the floor. Look to the right of me + baby. See that horrid gaping monstrosity? I bought a long narrow rug to cover it but I lived in horror that there were patches like this all over my kitchen floor. I couldn't very well buy, say, thirty rugs so only the most dramatic hole was covered up -- this one -- and this is just a small segment of the actual hole to which I refer.

 And here are some old pictures to give you a reminder of how much orange-y wood we had on our hands.

I had a great dislike of it.

I think I used the word "coffin" repeatedly to describe it.


So... have a look at THIS!

This is what you see when you first come in. Obviously there is trim to be put up and that root cellar door needs to be redone too, but such progress, no?!

Freshly painted white walls ("Dairy" by Beauti-Tone) with a few classic Jenna touches: a mason jar filled with reserved bacon fat, a bescribbled calendar (Elijah got at it when we had taken everything down to pain. ALSO WHY ARE THERE MARKERS IN MY HOUSE? It never ends well.) Oh yes, and a cup of leftover coffee from the morning, awaiting becoming "iced coffee" (as in, throw ice cubes and cream into it: voila!)

Even with a random sippy cup on the floor, I couldn't be happier with this change.

And yes, while we're on the subject, I should say, I'd love to paint those cupboards. My dream colour would be Soul Search by Behr.

(Source)

 See how well it pops against the white?

But... these cabinets are very rickety. If you look back at that one picture, you'll see one of the doors is totally broken. We've hammered it back together 5 times at least but it keeps getting pulled apart just by opening the door.

So... to take them apart to repaint them might spell disaster. Painting the walls white, my dream for years (now not so dark in that room! Hurray!) was such a huge leap towards what I wanted, and then add in a brand-new floor!, I could easily keep living like this for years.

****

When my mother-in-law first offered their services and chequebook to take on this project, I was completely floored. About two weeks before they were scheduled to arrive, a friend of mine popped by on her way to do some errands and I told her they were coming soon to do this.

I couldn't talks about it without getting choked up.

I was thinking of how generous both sets of grandparents are to us and our children. They pull off big home projects like this, keep tabs on any clothing items we need and then scour stores to find just the right thing in each kids' size. They drive (or fly) up multiple times a year to be with us and to watch our kids grow and change. They take our fairly large crew out to restaurants without batting an eye.

They just do things for us.

I thought of all of this as I spoke to my friend and couldn't help but cry because I so, so want to be this kind of support to our adult children. I would love to be the wildly generous grandmother, who not only 'spoils' them with gifts at Christmas and their birthday, but sends them new pants in their size and socks too, giving my son or daughter the dignity of "buying their table" (that is, helping without them having to be embarrassed to ask for help). I want to fly across the country if she chooses to settle down far from me to be at Anna's side after she has a baby and bring her cups of tea and quietly fold laundry while she naps and rock my little grandchild and tell her she's an excellent mother to her face, not just on Skype.

This sums up my Dave Ramsey Baby Steps "why." The more disciplined and intentional we are at paying down debt now, and saving up for the future soon, the better off we will be to bless our family in concrete ways as they get older. 

I don't think I dream of lavish vacations when we reach retirement age. I just dream of being close to my family and finding ways to help them out.

****

PS. While I took the photos for this post, my grocery haul that the oldest two had just dragged in for me sat on the table, waiting for me to deal with it. Don't worry, I only took a minute to take the pictures and then promptly refrigerated those pork chops. 

I just wanted you to see how fixated committed I was to finally getting this post up.