Smuffy, that love of my life, has been immersed in a vast project for quite some time now and I thought it might be time to share.  As always, when he dives into these endeavors, I am thankful if he can manage to keep his body intact amid the whir of power tools.  So far – so good.  I don’t like to think of his angels nappin’.

My kitchen was adorable.  Let me see, that was…take the year Pookie was born…add two…add a couple more months plus time out for the flu…carry the one…and, Yep!  My kitchen was adorable and up to date in…1986. It was all done out in wheat speckled wallpaper and bordered in what looked like quilted chickens. Really.

Now, lest you think I just left it to decay, I have given it a spot of paint here and there, a change of wallpaper and various window treatments since.  It may have had a couple of new microwaves along the way, a different refrigerator and a replacement dishwasher, but all those old stuck windows, clunky cabinets and poor layout remained.

A couple of years ago, the oven died.  Smuffy smiled at me.

“I suppose you’ll be wanting me to get you a new stove.”

“No,” I said, trying to be gentle.  “I’ll be wanting you to get me a new kitchen.”

Smuffy has proven himself over the years to be a man who can do anything.  I hated to see him wear himself to a frazzle, but I knew he’d insist on doing the whole thing himself.

For the past several years, I hadn’t done any updates at all.  It seemed like a waste of time and energy on something that needed a complete overhaul.  Though it embarrasses me to show the state of decline, here we go.  After all, we’ll be even more impressed with the “afters” if we’ve seen the “befores”, won’t we?

Still trying to hold my head up after showing you that.

Don’t get in a hurry to see the “after” photos.  I’m going to let you peek into the process as it unfolds.  Smuffy works on custom cabinetry and all the other aspects of the remodel every chance he gets in the midst of his busy work schedule.

As I said, the oven passed on a couple of years ago.  I pulled out the graph paper and began work on my if-not-larger-then-super-efficient dream kitchen and I stressed the concept of “Me, JoJo – You, Chip” in this fixer-upper and have been pleasantly surprised to find Smuffy 95% cooperative with all my unique designs. 

We began shopping for new appliances.  Since I wanted a wall oven and we had no wall yet to put it on, we brought it home to our basement and Smuffy ratchet-strapped it to his workbench.

That, folks, is when everything went south.  This would be the longest blog post in history if I paused here to tell of every interference, delay and situation that sprang up to derail this remodel.  Suffice it to say that I am getting mighty tired of carrying sloppy pies down and hot lasagnas up.  Still no kitchen.

Progress has been made along the way!  Let’s take a look –

Leave it to Smuffy to go all out.  Hearing of a downed walnut tree several years back, he couldn’t leave it just lying there in the forest.  With permission, Smuffy hauled it home, had it cut into planks and as you see here, he now has it planed and ready to install as my new countertops.  Click here to see the inspiration photo that got me started with my kitchen design and you’ll have an idea where we’re headed with this.

Here he is, when he began building base cabinets.  I’m thrilled with all the deep drawers that glide along on their soft-close hardware. 

Since the demise of the oven, it has seemed that the rest of the kitchen has lost the will to go on.  The burners on the stove have taken to whimsy, choosing their own heat settings without regard to how we adjust the knobs even to the point of desiring to stay on when we turn them off.  The dishwasher began to dislodge some of its more minor parts and finally, a couple of weeks ago, developed a funny smell, shorted out and stopped entirely.  A few days later the microwave stopped in mid-nuke to let us know that it had joined its comrades in their march to the appliance cemetery. 

This is when I started to sigh every fifteen seconds or so.  The next decision I need to make is whether to use regular silver-gray (like stainless steel, right?) or floral duct tape on the refrigerator door handle.

Meanwhile, we inch forward.  Saturday we had Demo Day Phase 1.  The dishwasher went into its new cabinet over the weekend and it is a fabulous thing with its third rack, bottle jets and all the bells and whistles.

While I wait, I’m cooking lots of wholesome meals for my contractor and trying not to sigh more often than necessary.  Since I am going to use my mom’s authentic farmhouse décor, I grabbed my chalk markers and brightened up my kitchen chalkboard with this –

I’ll keep you posted with updates as we go along and, eventually, those glorious “after” photos!

That’s it for Part 1 of this special episode of my Life With Smuffy. Let’s all say a prayer that this tale of kitchen remodel doesn’t become as “exciting” as some of his other adventures.  At least I can be glad my house is not on wheels.  If you’re all caught up on the latest Smuffy episodes, then, Dear Reader, you know what I mean.  If not, check out, “A Studebaker in the Hands…”  and “Why Stop When You’re on a Roll?”  His river adventures here and here will having you longing for summer days on the water – or maybe not.

Do you have advice and ideas on a kitchen remodel?  What one mistake have you made that you’d like to un-do?  What feature of your new kitchen do you love the most?  I’d love to hear from you.  Please leave a comment!