New Kitchen?

White, white and more white!  Drives me nuts.

I'm convinced that most people are clueless as to what makes a good, functional kitchen.  When we moved in here, for instance, the first problem we had in our kitchen was a propane stove that was terribly unpredictable as to whether it would over- or under-cook any item in question.  It also filled the house with propane fumes anytime we turned the oven on. Apparently the lady who lived here before us never used the stove, and pretty much microwaved everything she ate.  We replaced the unpredictable, stinky propane unit with an electric range.  And it works well enough, and is very predictable. Problem solved.

But the kitchen has other issues.  There is no pantry. As you can see in the picture above, the microwave sits above the range and, if you put a large stock pot on the cooktop there's very little room between it and the microwave.  We have white cabinets and white 4 x 4 inch white tiles which pretty much means I'm either cleaning the kitchen constantly or living with grungy tile and cabinet doors.  The cabinets are deep (good) and have what I can only describe as crawl spaces in the corners (bad), where you can't see or reach any items that happen to migrate back there.

Check out the non-existent pantry!

OK, so yes, I'm bitching.  Everyone has things about their kitchen they don't like.  But when you homestead, your kitchen becomes a place you will spend hours and hours.  So, ergonomically, it has to work.

That's why we're remodeling ours.  

Big Ag got a nice little bonus this year from work, so this week I will be talking to contractors, and finding out prices, timeframes and options to re-do this kitchen, at least the cabinets, floors and countertops.  And you get to come along with me, through the construction mess to hopefully a lovely finished and functional new kitchen.

Right now, my thoughts are leaning towards acid-stained concrete floors (no grout to clean) quartz countertops (tougher than granite, but still a solid surface -- no grout to clean here either!), a real range hood where the microwave now hangs, a built-in cabinet microwave and warming drawer (for proofing bread, among other things) and a PANTRY, even if it's just a big, double floor-to-ceiling cabinet.

I don't care how fancy it is.  I'm just tired to keeping my all my canned goods in the laundry room.

We went to Lowe's last weekend to browse and the saleslady was talking to us.  She was describing how hard she is on a kitchen, and when I asked what she did, she said proudly, "well I have six grandkids!  What can be tougher than that?"  

With all due respect, here's what can be tougher than six kids:  Boiling stock pots, placed on a countertop.  Lye spills from soapmaking. Sticky strawberry juice with pectin overflowing from jam-making. Citric acid and TSP, used for sterilization after winemaking.  The list goes on.

I'm calling the first contractor today, so we will see what can be done to make this kitchen more workable.  Because I believe the gateway to madness is a dynfunctional work space, and I intend to stay sane and reasonable in these years to come.  Well, pretty much, anyway.