nothing good can come

from urgently destroying your kitchen

Our backs were to the wall.

Laura was in treatment.

The children were tiny young. My son wasn’t even speaking yet.

We had bought a dump.

As a former boarding house, the floors were covered with peel and stick tiles, the tile ceiling in the basement was full of mice, there were fossilized remains of the previous tenants food. It was gross

And that was just the beginning.

Large chunks of the place needed to be rewired. The walls were full of holes and cracks. The casings around the doors in each room were shattered, beaten and smashed.

Then there was the kitchen.

The kitchen was not so much a kitchen but a grease fire waiting to happen. Everything in the kitchen had to go.

The problem?

At the time, I didn’t know the first thing about building a new kitchen.

Sure, I could use existing plumbing in the basement to add a washer and dryer. Getting rid of the wired in / plumbed in sink, stovetop, mini fridge combo was do-able.

And the floors, walls and doors that desperately needed attention?

They were all within my wheelehouse.

But a new kitchen?

That was above my paygrade.

We put out an all points bulletin asking friends and neighbours if they ‘had a kitchen person’ who could start immediately.

That was our first mistake.

We were urgent.

And in our urgency, we were granted just what we asked for and likely not what we wanted. We found someone who could start yesterday.

The problem?

We didn’t ask why.

And that is how we met Lolly.

As a preview to the horror, I’ll end today with this:

If they can start tomorrow and a friend is happy to send their contractor from their house to yours?

They might not be that good.

What’s more,

If you’re are urgent about getting a major renovation done, you might want to rethink that renovation.

Nothing good can come from urgently ripping out your kitchen.