Over five years ago we were house hunting, and one thing that struck me as not making sense about the house we ended up buying when we saw it was the location of the kitchen. I couldn’t figure out why in the world the builder had made it the room you entered into when you open the front door.

I decided we would swap the kitchen and living room locations. (I later saw the floor plans and it was supposed to built in the area we wanted to move it to – apparently the contractor took a shortcut and placed it where he did because it was easier.) We intended to do these renovations before we moved in.

But then covid happened, and that changed all of my plans. We moved from Ramat Beit Shemesh extremely abruptly, arriving on the first day of the most draconian lockdown that Israel was to experience. Instead of the freshly renovated home we had planned to move into, we moved into a home in need of a lot of renovations. We got busy working on those. However, it then became complicated to do a kitchen renovation of the scale that I previously planned while we were living there.

Additionally, it was a time of extreme physical isolation and getting workers to do the work we weren’t qualified to do was difficult. When I had the gas line moved, we all had to vacate the house so the worker could do the work – he said that was the covid guideline that he had to work under.

That was work that took less than an hour, but we couldn’t stand outside for hours a day, for days on end, in order to have new plumbing laid and new flooring put down. Additionally, one wall in the adjoining room where I wanted to move it to is asymetrically curved, and I was having a hard time figuring out how to use it well. Taking into account the reality and constraints of the world at the time, we decided to keep it simple and put in a new kitchen in the area where it was already located, though we very much extended it.

This was the fifth of the kitchens that we’ve renovated and it was the hardest to figure out the design for because of the awkward space we had to work with, but it’s been a very functional kitchen and served us well. But I’ve never been able to make my peace with people entering our home directly into the kitchen, especially since our kitchen is very heavily used. There’s always some kind of cooking or eating or project going on, so there’s always some kind of activity in progress. It never looks like a still life photo for more than ten minutes at the very most, and you know the likelihood of visitors coming in during those ten minutes, right?

I’ve finally decided to do something about the ongoing discomfort I feel about this set up, and honor my need to have a more private kitchen. I’ve gone back and forth about how to renovate – once we’re doing the work, it would be nice to change the cabinet color and style (what we got was also a covid decision) to something that is more my preference. But I have a financial goal of paying down my mortgage and a major renovation would definitely set that back.

My reasons for doing this renovation are two fold: having a more private kitchen and opening up the floor space so there’s more room for hosting. When I reminded myself what my priorities were, I realized I can scale down the costs significantly and still achieve what is most important to me.

The way I’m going to make the numbers work is to use the existing kitchen cabinets and countertops. Everything will have to be reconfigured to fit a very different space. Right now I have one double sink; the new kitchen will have two separate sinks on opposite walls. I’ll use the current double sink and attached countertop on one wall, and I’ll have the large island countertop refabricated with a sink installed in it for the opposite wall. There will be costs for plumbing, electricity and having the existing counters custom cut, but that will be much less than a new kitchen.

A week ago I spent a morning doing renovation preliminary work: arranging for the electrician, plumber and gas installer to come. Then I moved the fridge, freezer, island and couches. It was gratifying to see some movement in the direction I want to go.

A few hours later, I got the call from the social worker letting me know they were having the meeting at our home a couple of days later, and with some frustration about all the time and effort I had wasted, moved everything back in place and cancelled all of the workmen. I didn’t want the foster care agency representatives to come for a visit in the middle of a big renovation.

Fortunately with another week comes another beginning….:)

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This morning my seventeen year old son and I moved the appliances, island and couches. He’s rarely around and it was nice to work with him.

By the time I thought of taking a ‘before’ picture, the counters were covered with things that we had pulled out, the fridge and freezer had been moved to their new location, and the cabinets were beginning to be dissembled – and there was no way I was going to undo all that we did just to take a neat picture even though it pains me to show my kitchen looking like this. Mess happens when you take a kitchen apart, and I really wanted to share our starting place as I document what we’re doing.

Once we got started, it changed very fast!

Since it was Shushan Purim, all of the younger kids were home from school. It’s really not ideal to start a project like this with young children who get into everything, but my seventeen year old is rarely home with time to help out with something like this and I wanted to make the most of the opportunity.

Ds17 put ds12 to work as his assistant and he was helpful doing real work, not the kind of fake jobs you give to kids to make them feel like they’re helping.

My fifteen year son came home while the wall units were being dissembled, and he got to work with us, taking down the tile backsplash behind the stove. It’s so enjoyable to work together as a team – there’s an energy that’s really different from each person doing their jobs separately.

Ds15 told me it was a little sad for him to remove all of the tile, remembering all the work they put into tiling the kitchen.

Once that was done, the teens both wanted to take down the small wall behind the section of the kitchen that has the sink. It’s an annoying little wall but necessary to have a private side entrance to our home that leads directly to our second floor, which used to be a vacation rental apartment. We decided to get rid of the private entrance so we could open up the space more, so ds15 took down that door, door frame and wall.

The wall is down!

I mentioned that the younger kids were home, didn’t I? They were very interested in all the changes being made.

They continually found ways to actively participate!

Can you see below how removing that wall made it feel more spacious? It also lets in so much light and air, and makes access to the side patio from the house more convenient.

After taking apart the little wall and looking at how damaged the wall was where the tile backsplash was, we were inspired to go even further in opening up our space. I’ll share more about that in my next post.

We’ve made wonderful progress today. The electrician will come tomorrow morning to see what needs to be done, and then I’ll schedule with him when to come. The plumber will start the work on Tuesday, and once the plumbing is done, I can put all the base cabinets in place, which has to be done before the countertop fabricators can come to measure for the recuts for the countertop.

My last kitchen renovation took just five days, which was super fast, but I don’t anticipate that this time around. Just the plumbing alone will take four days. My hope is to be finished by the end of next week, so that there will be time to get ready for Pesach without having renovations going on at the same time.

Avivah