32 Years Later - Dream Kitchen

32 Years
This month is the 3rd year anniversary of a dream come true for me.

I told you in a previous post when I was talking about my Mother not getting her dream for their home for over 25 years, that the same thing happened to me. Only I had to wait longer. She always dreamed of tearing out the wall between the kitchen and the “summer kitchen” and making a large kitchen in the farm house. (Old farm houses had what they called a “summer kitchen”, which was used for canning and heavy cooking). When I was grown and married, living here in Minnesota, Mom finally got her dream. She used her inheritance from Grandma and had her kitchen done. They still had three young children yet, so those three siblings were able to enjoy it, us other three were grown and gone.

After 32 years of living in our home, I finally received my dream of a new kitchen too. Our children were all grown, with one living at home yet. Three years ago last month, in fact on my birthday, the remodeling started on our kitchen. I’m convinced that we still had the original kitchen from 1914! It had taken me a very long time, and lots of discussion to convince my husband that we needed to do this remodel job, I used the viewpoint of resale value, as we look toward retirement. We had planned it all summer, and I thought the company we contracted would be doing it in August. It seemed we waited forever for them to get started. Finally on Sept. 23rd, the work started. The kitchen was taken down to the studs, we got new walls, new ceiling and the floor was so bad under the linoleum, there were places where we could see the basement. A new sub floor had to be put in. I had them move the sink across the room to the window, so that I could look out and view our beautiful back yard when working at the sink. We took out our pantry to make the small kitchen larger, and we closed off one of the two entrances, to give us more space to work with. The kitchen to the back porch got moved, for more space. It’s amazing how our little kitchen was able to get bigger, just by doing those things. We bought new appliances AND a dishwasher! Side by side refrigerator and a smooth top, Maytag double oven stove, even an eat in area (how lucky can you get!) The work took almost 6 weeks, if I remember correctly. I have before photos, but apparently don't have them on the computer to post. The contractor who did the remodeling told us that it was the most dramatic change in a kitchen that he had ever done!

That summer we had our plastered walls downstairs all fixed and painted. I wanted to get new carpeting, but had to wait till the kitchen was done. Our bathroom had been remodeled about 10 years earlier, but there was some refurbishing that needed done in there too. We contracted for that work at the same time. The kitchen got done, the bathroom got refurbished, and by Thanksgiving we had our new carpet. We bought some much needed new furniture for the living room. We had a new house! Of course we had a new mortgage too! But, our dream was fulfilled. I considered myself a very lucky woman. I still do, and now for three years I have been enjoying our kitchen. I always said that I didn’t want to move from here, because we lived in such a nice neighborhood, but I did want to update and fix the house. I finally got my dream. I love our home even more than I did 35 years ago! (Bob does too, though he doesn't oh and ah like I do)We plan to stay!