This has been the most difficult part of my selections....

I have an incredibly well functioning, well laid out kitchen for our family. There is not much I would change for it's functionality. I have high quality appliances that work well. Esthetics, however, is not its strong suit. So I am embarking on this incredibly expensive remodel to improve esthetics. On this mother's day, my deceased frugal, penny pinching, money hiding, coupon clipping mother is rolling over in her grave for the lack of propriety given her daughter's ostentatious ways.


There in lies a rather difficult challenge; How to preserve the function and make it look esthically "stunning", at least, esthetically nice.

Take sink and faucet for example: I have a large 28 inch wide 10 inch deep sink with a pull out faucet that has a spray that stays on with a push of button. Well every nice looking faucet that I look at requires that I hold the button with my finger if I want spray. How useless is that? How would I rinse my vegies with one finger holding the button and the other hand getting the sand out of home grown swiss chard. I guess I will stick with somewhat boring looking faucet, not my heart's desire but I gotta wash the bounty of our garden without having the second person hold the sprayer on. As nice as my husband is, this is not a chore that he would willingly accept.

I eliminated all of my uppers to bring in more light and view into the kitchen. The house already has no walls between kitchen, dining and living room and there are three walls of glass. We are maxed out structually and cannot put in any more windows. We squeezed in another foot of window. Can we say over the top?

Well, that action lost my "perfect" storage for coffee things, upper cabinet next to the sink! When I get my new kitchen put in, I will have to take two steps that I currently do not need to for coffee making things. Glasses will have to go in drawers. How practical is that? Not sure, haven't done it yet.

Panicking about refrigerator opening even when it is designed to open 90 degrees.... Kind gentleman with grey hair, also known as DH, immediately takes action and cuts into dry wall to expose plumbing so that plumbers can give "bids", so that refrigerator may open a few degrees more.

Egad. Not only that, I am second guessing the color choices of the cabinet already ordered.

Needing to take deep breath and a little hand holding from my architect cum designer cum color coordinator cum psychotherapist.... I will get through this. Tomorrow is another day.

Thanks for listening.