Home Improvement

When we bought our house 19 years ago, the one feature that Deb wasn't crazy about was the kitchen. The location of the house was great, it had great "bone structure" (although the wall and floor coverings were badly in need of updating), and it fit our family well. The galley kitchen was passable as long as there was only one cook. And for a long time there was only one cook.

So we've lived with this non-ideal kitchen for all these years, making several cosmetic updates. When dinner guests come over, the arrangement of the house naturally causes all the incoming guests to congregate in the kitchen, which makes for extreme congestion, just when the meal comes out of the oven.

We now have two cooks. Abigail, now that she has acquired the language and has become more comfortable in our family, has gravitated to the kitchen as one of the places she likes to be. She likes to cook. She loves "cook's privilege" (the cook gets to lick out the bowl). So we finally decided that the kitchen was in need of a more extreme makeover. After a few months of planning, we're moving ahead with the project. The kitchen is going to grow.

Along with the kitchen, the adjoining half bath is moving, and we're adding a room onto the back of the house, a sort-of homeschool room or sitting room that adjoins the kitchen and shares open space with the kitchen. In the picture below, the wall area between the two red lines will be removed and extended out about 19 feet into the back yard.


The permits are in place, the plans are drawn up, and excavation begins on Monday, September 27. We'll post pictures as this progresses.