by Jennifer Bioche

Created on: December 15, 2009

It began with telling myself the truth.  Every day when I walked in and out of our kitchen, I averted my eyes and wrapped myself in denial. Three meals a day and all the clean up in between, I clung tightly to the notion “well - this isn’t so bad,” a white lie that over time wasn’t working.

The reality was - I had always hated our kitchen.  It was dark. It was ugly. There was no pantry.  There was little counter space for food prep. I asked myself a dozen times “what were they (the original owners) thinking? How did they live like this?”

Six years after buying our home in Newport Beach, CA we had fixed up almost everything. Floors, bathrooms, overhead lighting.  Even small jobs had been mini ordeals with the mess and our three kids wanting to play “Bob the Builder” with the workmen.  So the idea of taking on a kitchen just seemed too daunting to even consider.  Still, every time I went to someone’s home who had “a real kitchen”, I longed for the day when I would walk into ours without one eye closed.

One day last January, I bit the bullet and called a contractor. A gentleman came out to our house, took measurements and had a few good ideas. Then I got the bid for about 60 grand and got very depressed.    

Still, it got me thinking about the possibilities. I checked with our bank about financing.  I cooked my husband his favorite dishes and said “the kitchen isn’t going away, and it’s not going to remodel itself.” He agreed. I took a deep breath and made another call.  

When Chuck, the salesman, first walked into my house, I knew I would hire his team.  He was friendly and highly experienced. He listened to my every gripe about the current kitchen, paced with me up and down the galley lay-out, and brainstormed with me about how to plan a dream replacement.

“You are going to be so happy with the end result.  It’s not an easy process- but we try to make it as bearable for you as possible,” he assured me. 

And so the journey began.  Chuck met with us over several meetings designing and re-working the lay-out. This took about two months.  He hounded us, and rightly so, over picking out appliances, since “that’s what defines the look of the kitchen”.  The appliances also go into the final plans for measurements, and every thing has to match up. Slowly a plan

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>