Kitchen Renovations

I am about to start a kitchen renovation. Some may be surprised that I am taking on such a project. House renovations, aside from a coat of paint or two are just not my thing.

Unfortunately, this past year my dishwasher died. Before I had put this dishwasher in, I had written with a marker at the back of the space where the dishwasher was to go, DISHWASHER. CHRISTMAS GIFT 1998. So I  guess it didn't owe me anything. I am saving euphemistic pennies for a new roof and thought a dishwasher was  not as essential. My family thought otherwise.

My daughter lives in an area outside Halifax, that has a local community website. Lo and behold, she opened the site to find a working dishwasher, was going to be put out on the street nearby. She called to ask what I thought of the idea, which was not much.

Nevertheless she called the owner and learned only a small attachment piece, was missing.

In the stealth of night my daughter, her husband and small son set out to somehow force the big dishwasher into their small car. The strength of their next-door neighbour was required, as my daughter's older sister still every so often refers to her as spaghetti arms.

The strength of my neighbour was required to get the dishwasher from the small car to my kitchen. There it sat waiting. I finally gave up and on a second try I found the missing attachment at a hardware store.

The dishwasher is the moveable type that I push to the sink, plug in the cord and attach to the faucet. When all goes as planned I have clean dishes to put away. This isn't my first choice, but the dishes get washed, my kitchen is big and there is that extra surface space, whenever I am in the frenzy of creative cooking, which is not that frequent, or just plain cooking. There is also a place for my dirty dishes. I don't have a "dumb waiter ", a cupboard on pulleys going down into the cellar, as my great aunts did with their dirty dishes, when unexpected guests arrived at the door.

I have made peace with the dishwasher.

During the Christmas holidays my kitchen was sometimes filled to capacity with rambunctious little boys. They claimed the opening the dishwasher left. Much to their delight I found a box of stickers and some small stick on, coloured lights. Later I found an old kitchen cabinet door in the basement that my cousin reluctantly attached to the opening.

So I begin my kitchen renovation, on a scale perfectly suited for me. My little grandson and visiting children will soon have a tastefully decorated "snug away" place of their own, and if I am lucky I will be able to find a cart to roll in and out to hold kitchenware excess.