This post is sponsored by Home Hardware. We are thrilled to be working with them throughout our entire renovation process.
Well, it’s been a hot minute since I showed my face on this slice of the Internet – but for good reason.
Just as we were getting our kitchen renovation project underway (you can read the first couple of planning posts about the overall design plan and the backsplash and countertop selections), the world was thrown into complete tumult.
And because of the pandemic, my family was forced to shift our priorities and that meant my business plans were thrown into a proverbial blender.
Oh – and I was pregnant.
Was. I’m no longer pregnant. I gave birth to our gorgeous second baby girl in July.
So, life? It’s been a bit real.
To be honest, we survived the lockdown as well as could be expected. We made do. When we knew our project install was delayed, we used the unfinished kitchen space as a makeshift desk area for Dan. We knew that as soon as restrictions eased and safety policies were in place, our renovation would pick back up again.
This is where we find ourselves today. We’ve picked things back up and the renovation is full steam ahead.
In fact, as I write this post, I’m cozied up in front of the fireplace at our Airbnb, because with the new baby and, to be honest, with my business picking up through COVID, we decided to move out while the kitchen was being demolished and rebuilt.
It was a smart decision (one I’ll tell you all about in another post)…
But I know right now, you’re probably just interested in seeing the state of things.
The first thing we did was contact our Project Manager to make sure all the products we ordered for the kitchen were still in stock and available. The cabinets were ordered pre-pandemic, and they were ready to go.
So, the silver lining of all of this (I guess?) is that ALL the kitchen elements were in the warehouse waiting to be installed. Zero downtime on the renovation timeline to wait for deliveries and orders!
With a timeline in place, we were able to work backward from our scheduled Demo Day to make sure everything went off without a hitch.
In the weeks leading to Demo Day, Dan and I blitzed the entire kitchen. We each tackled one zone every couple of days to declutter – and, even though we’d been decluttering like crazy through the pandemic, we still ended up with a minivan load of donations.
Then, we moved or sold the larger items that are not part of the new design.
The old pantry is now in my office and I’m looking forward to spending an entire day setting it up as closet overflow and craft storage for the kids. (By the way, my office renovation was the last major project we did last year. You can check out all those posts here. It’s basically my favourite room ever).
Other things we did in advance of the renovation?
We ate as much of the food in our cupboards and freezer as possible!
This sounds silly, but when your house is torn apart, the last thing you want to store is food like boxes of cereal and crackers and cans of soup.
So we lived on oatmeal and pancakes for a few days right before moving out LOL
But in all seriousness – this way, we did a big grocery shop when we got to the Airbnb to stock up on essentials, and moving back into the house with the new kitchen will be that much simpler.
This might seem unrelated, but I also did ALL the laundry and deep cleaned all the bedrooms before the remodel began.
For starters, I didn’t want to have to get to the laundry room while the house was all dusty and such. Secondly, I knew that the plumber was going to have to be all up in the laundry room and basement because that’s where the main water lines are…so really, I just wanted to simplify everything.
As for cleaning the bedrooms? I knew that we’d all want a cozy and comfortable and CLEAN place to sleep and recover after the remodel. Nothing like a pristine bedroom to come home to, know what I mean?
We are super thrilled to have this remodel underway. I’ve had quite a few questions about the layout and some of the organization features we picked, so I’ll write about that next!
){kind=link}