multi-tasker

Our kitchen is the ultimate multi-tasker. We cook and store food in it, as most people do, but then we ask it to do much more. I have a deep garden window over the sink which houses about half the sorry-looking, wishing-they-got-more-sunlight plants I own. We eat breakfasts and lunches at a table there, as most people do, but we also use the table for homework, art projects, piling up school notices, collecting stacks of mail, and-- despite sticky spots of either glue or honey-- sorting laundry. The computer which CD and I share, where I sit now, is at a kitchen desk, so in-boxes for various purposes are in here too. Lastly, we have coat hooks by the door for the kids to hang coats and backpacks and to leave shoes.

The cooking space is poorly designed for someone who cooks regularly. Any additional person is in the way. It has nine doorways but the refrigerator opens into the only space where one can walk through. It has a small oven (that only bakes 12 cookies at a time, when it works at all.) The wood floor has warped. Every corner of every wall and every white cabinet has chipped paint. It is dark. (No, being white and being dark are not mutually exclusive.) The counters are unforgiving tile with stained grout.

The cooking area is hard to use and the eating area is overused.


When the refrigerator kicked the bucket four years ago, my brain started rolling. The kitchen was trying to tell me that Something need to be done. Maybe we could fit a refrigerator where the pantry is located.... Although design issues have stayed on my brain, all I've done is put fresh paint on the ceiling and walls, leaving the chipped trim work for another day.  I admit, I was a bit afraid that if I made the place look too much better we'd never remodel it.


And now we are There. Yes, Something will be done.  But how much? And the big question determining that is, How Much? We're starting the ball rolling down what can be a very steep slope, but hoping to keep it in control. It will be an interesting spring.