Kitchen planning: What I've been up to

I'm afraid I'm a very bad juggler. I really only like to throw one ball in the air at a time. My blogging ball has been feeling a bit ignored.

I've been too busy alternating between spring cleaning and making plans for summer and fall. Homeschooling plans, yes, but also plans for our new kitchen.

Thirteen years ago, when we moved into our century-old Sears bungalow, the kitchen had just been remodeled and modernized. Nothing fancy, just your basic white laminate cabinets, vinyl flooring and new white gas appliances.

It was a perfectly nice kitchen, especially considering I didn't know how to cook at the time. But a decade later, the inexpensive materials were already showing some wear-and-tear. (I did learn how to cook!) And then there was the water damage under the sink...

Two years ago, friends of ours were remodeling another old house, and offered us their solid wood cabinets. We accepted! I figured out which ones we'd be able to use, and the men spent a rainy day carefully removing each cabinet.

Those "reclaimed" cabinets have been in my parents' garage ever since, waiting patiently for us to be ready for them. This summer, they finally get to come out and play!

As a kid, I used to spend hours drawing house plans and reading House & Garden and Architectural Digest, so this is totally my idea of fun. (I'm such a nerd. Why didn't I become an architect?)

I've been designing this kitchen in my head for more than a year, but of course a lot depends on budget, and how things work out when the walls come down. And walls are coming down...

The counters are stained and chipping. The flooring is scratched and coming apart at the seams. And the oven is literally falling apart. Plus, I'm ready to change the footprint to a more functional shape. So, basically, the whole kitchen is coming out. What's salvageable will be donated.

We've experienced the mess of home renovation before. We lived with my parents during the summer of '04, when Scott, with the help of friends, installed our hardwood floors.

Fortunately, my parents live right next door, and don't mind us invading their space a bit more than usual! We're still planning to sleep at home most nights through this process, but we'll be there for most meals, and any time the dust and mess are just too much.

Demolition is scheduled for June 4.

In the meantime, we've been pricing options for flooring and countertops, choosing paint colors, decluttering the pantry and cabinets, making menu plans for easy eating at my parents' house, ordering homeschool supplies to keep the kids busy in the heat and chaos, trying to figure out where all the STUFF is going to go, and praying not to be overtaken by remodeling anxiety!

This ball has been a big one, I hope you understand. But now that my brain is done obsessing the planning is almost done, I can finally start blogging about it!

I'm calling it our Frugal Farmhouse Kitchen Restoration. Because every big project needs a fancy name, right?