I know as a real estate agent, I harp on the importance of keeping your home up to date and the importance of updates in getting the best price possible for a home when selling.   Well, I will have you all know, I do put my money where my mouth (or in this case keyboard) is.   We at the Pappas household have been in the throes of a kitchen renovation and it’s been a rather enlightening experience.

First of all, let me say that if you can move out of your house while doing a renovation of your kitchen, then do so.   I DO NOT recommend living in it.   It’s messy and disruptive and you tend to eat out which means eating food that is not really good for you.  And if you’re like me, and don’t do well with chaos, then it’s better to be gone – especially during phase I which is the DEMO.

Demo day is glorified by Chip Gaines on Fixer Upper.   He and the men on his crew love demo day.   They bring in all manner of sledge hammers, jack hammers and crow bars and go to town destroying the home they are going to be renovating.   It happens in about 5 minutes on the show.  I’m here to tell you it’s all lies.

Demo day in our kitchen was started by Mike Pappas with a jackhammer as he took up the stone flooring.   For those of you who know Mike, this should tell you everything you need to know.   It went fairly quickly but of course he didn’t put up proper plastic sheeting to try to protect the rest of the house….so a layer of dust was all through the main floor.  Don’t ask me how I reacted to this.   It’s not printable for polite company.

Phase I continued with the cabinet refacing company ( Mid America Cabinet Refacing who I highly recommend) and they then added to the misery at my house by destroying the tile counter tops and tile back splash.  They also took out a desk and built me a small pantry cabinet and broom closet.  But from here we had no counters, no sink and no working appliances in the house.   All the appliances were in the garage.

To be clear, I wanted all of this to happen.  Seriously.

The next several days were spent constantly vacuuming, dusting and mopping floors.   Not that it made any real difference….we tracked more in from outside and from the subfloor in the kitchen.   I felt a huge sense of sympathy to those living in bombed out buildings around the world.   This must be their reality every day God help them.

One thing that this has driven home though is how much stuff we had in our kitchen cabinets – all piled up in boxes in the dining room and in the basement- and how little we actually need to function on a daily basis.   We had a microwave, toaster oven and coffee maker working in our great room.   We managed like this for two weeks.   The sink was the half bath sink.

Finally, the floor tile guy came.   Which was the beginning of Phase II.  Great right?   Well…when a floor tile guy is laying the floor one cannot walk on it til it dries.   So we had to go out our front door to access the garage where our fridge was just to get food or coffee creamer.   This was all happening when we had some snowy/icy days.  Once the floor was set, then the grout had to go in….again, no walking for at least 24 hours.   I’m sure our poor neighbors got a eyeful of either Mike or I walking outside in our pajama’s to retrieve our morning coffee looking much worse for the wear.   We probably looked like the Walking Dead.

Now…we are on the down side and the “clean side” … Phase III –new counters are in meaning working sink is in….appliances have been cleaned and put back into place.  Back splash has gone in too.   We can cook, prep and wash dishes.  House is alot cleaner.  And there is less profanity being used daily.  But we still cannot put our stuff back into the cabinets until the refacing is completed.  So now we wait for cabinet refacing which will be the finishing touch.

I say this experience has been like childbirth….terrible while it’s happening….but in the end you are so happy that you forget the bad parts and happily do it again later.   I will say a kitchen renovation is particularly disruptive as the kitchen is such an important part of the home.   The hub really.   But I also think this proves the point that it’s a good thing to update – within reason.   We have opted for cabinet refacing twice now, in two different homes.   This is a hugely budget saving option for those who don’t need to change layout at all and who have decent cabinets to begin with.   This is considered a “minor” kitchen renovation in terms of price and this type of renovation brings the most bang for the buck in return.

I’ll let you know when we get to Phase IV – putting everything back where it belongs and taking back the other areas of my home.  By then I will have conveniently forgotten all the mess and misery and I will start planning the next project.