The Beginning

We are happily living in our extremely cute and cozy Cape Cod style house, built in 1939, and still full of vintage charm. The previous owner put a ton of work into the house, which was definitely a big attraction for us. We bought directly from the owners before they had officially put the house on the market, so the kitchen was in mid-renovation. He had done all the hard stuff--moving a doorway to open the space up and building (yes, he built them himself) some great cabinets and replacing appliances. However, once those new cabinets were installed, he put in a "temporary" countertop as a short term solution. We bought the house shortly afterward, including the temporary countertops--the cheapest white post-formed laminate ever. We've been living with those "temporary" countertops for over 4 years now, and we have had the idea of finishing the kitchen update we inherited on our "someday we'll get around to it" list for pretty much the whole 4 years. Recently, a friend had her kitchen completely renovated and was raving about her contractor. Not having met anyone who raved about their contractor, I decided to call him for an estimate. When my friend had her kitchen and bathroom completely gutted and replaced, he was in and out of her house in only 2 weeks, with the job complete down to the smallest detail. Which means that if we haven't planned for all the smallest details, we'll be making decisions on the spot and taking whatever is on the shelf at Home Depot, instead of what we might really want. So now I am obsessed with making all the decisions about materials, etc NOW so that we can have everything in place when it is time to go. Luckily, the contractor has been really busy, so he has not given us a start date yet. I am spending all my time looking at magazines, checking out all the kitchen design books in the library, and interviewing all my neighbors who just had their kitchens remodeled about what they chose and why, and whether they would make the same decisions again. I am hoping that putting all this down on paper (or virtual paper, I guess) will help me overcome my obsession with making the right choices.