A Kitchen Odyssey: What Needs to Be Done

Prior Posts:
A Kitchen Odyssey: Follow Along, If You Dare
A Kitchen Odyssey: From the Beginning

As mentioned in my last post, our kitchen cabinets are peeling, which is the impetus to make some changes in the kitchen. We live in a neighborhood of $1mil+ homes, and our kitchen really does not reflect that. The original cabinets are a cheap, thin wood in addition to their current peeling state. Refacing or replacing the doors is an option, but it still means low-quality cabinetry on a whole. So I don’t see any way around replacing them completely. That and the fact that there just are not enough of them. While I have whittled down my pots and pans considerably, I do own a variety of larger items that don’t seem to fit anywhere well, like my professional mixer and canning pots. I also do not have enough room for spices and baking goods, and no pantry whatsoever, necessitating open shelving right outside the kitchen door in the garage. And let’s not even go into the limited amount of counter space I have.

Speaking of counter space, the current black-and-white tile countertops are in fair condition. There are some cracks and chips, and the grout is not holding up all that well. And as an avid cook, I have found that the uneven surface is not optimal. I do like the fact that tile holds up to heat and you can use it as a quick cutting surface, but being so white, it is hard to keep clean and shows every speck of dirt, food, and berry stain. I am constantly scrubbing them. I am in need of a smooth and much larger surface. I also need a larger sink. Either a deep farmer’s sink, or a deep two-tub sink (depends on how much space I want to give up). As for the faucet, well…that couldn’t wait. It exploded on my son two weeks ago. The plastic hose split, and when we pulled out the entire hose, there were kinks and splits. We replaced it with a residential version of an industrial faucet, which I am happy with.

We’ve also replaced the dishwasher, due to a leaky seal and flooding problem, and now have a quiet KitchenAid. We also had to buy a new refrigerator in December. I went from a bottom freezer model to a side-by-side. I had width constraints to deal with, so my options were limited. I would have liked the side-by-side with the bottom freezer, but it really didn’t work as well and many were out of our price range at the time. Unfortunately, this particular model, while energy efficient and with an ice and water dispenser (which I have never had), is just too small for me. I cook in large quantities, necessitating fridge and/or freezer room for food. I can no longer make freezer jams, or stock up on anything when it goes on sale. Nevertheless, it is new and I’m not going to be replacing it this time around. Have to make do, I guess. If I have additional cabinet space and can move the pantry inside, then I will be able to purchase an outside freezer, which would be ideal. We had one for over 20 years, but it recently died.

As for the cooking options, I currently have a white glass 5-burner Dacor stovetop with white burners. Bad. Never buy white, not if you cook as much as I do. My husband actually got out a razor blade to try and scrape off some of the burned bits the other day because it was looking so bad. I also have the original JennAir ovens, which are now over 40 years old. They are finally dying, and don’t really cook at the temperature you set them at. This is bad news for someone who tests recipes for a food column. So my options are to buy two new wall ovens and one cooktop or to switch to a full stove/oven combo and turn the wall oven space into a pantry. I like the convenience of two ovens when I’m doing a lot of cooking, but neither is very large and they will not accommodate larger baking sheets or jelly roll pans. I could also really use the pantry space. This is a toss-up at the moment and will depend on how much extra cabinetry we can install and what the yet-to-be-set budget will accommodate.

We also realize that for resale purposes, as well as aesthetics, that we will need to replace the industrial-looking FLOR carpet tiles. These carpet tiles go from the kitchen into the dining room (which is currently my office). We need to do the floor in both rooms, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be the same thing. So we have a lot of options here.

We recently had our electrician son install recessed lighting in the kitchen, Two over the sink and three down the center. He wants to install two more over the stove when we put that in place. It’s amazing how much more light I now have. So much so that it illuminates every speck of dirt on the counter, every spill on the stove, and every grain of sand on the carpet. Really makes the counters and stove look bad. And makes me more conscious of my next choice.

The last big consideration at this point is whether to remove part of a wall. Originally a pass-through was built over the stove from the kitchen into the dining room. Because I knew I would be using this space as an office, we chose to fill in the area with glass blocks. (See photo above.) Now we are thinking about removing not only the glass blocks but expanding out a foot on each side all the way up to the ceiling. That would open up the kitchen more and we could even build in a sitting/bar counter in the dining room.

Ahhh, so much to do. Kinda scary, don’t you think? Of course, that means there is a lot more to write about and share. Tune in next time….