The mess. And a bit of progress.

Unless you have built your own kitchen cabinets, you can have no idea how messy it is. Somehow I don't remember it being this bad in our last two kitchen remodels. (Yes, we've done this twice before....we hate ourselves and like to suffer.) Although, last time was 6 years ago. Back then, we didn't have kids, and I worked and traveled a lot. Plus we had a better set up for a cabinet shop. Our garage and basement in our last house seemed to get everything out of the way better. Or maybe I'm just more annoyed with it all this time around.

Keith spent days and days trimming and planing a big pile of rough cherry boards. Talk about frustrating. All that work and only a big mess to deal with. It felt like there was no progress on the cabinets for a while because of all the prep work required on the wood.


What to do with this mountain of planer shavings? Bennett and Leah became work horses with those little buckets for a week.

They filled a bucket one at a time and took it out to the trees to spread it around. It took some coaxing. Actually, it took a full-on bribe.


Bennett got to pick out a new toy racetrack after all that child labor.

But there was some progress eventually. The island got the first makeover.




The island is ready for a granite counter top. But there's a lot more to do before that comes. At least the fridge and stove fit--but only for a quick measurement and to give ourselves a little vision of the future.

Next: Building the drawers.