Discouragement

This weekend I succumbed to a little bit of discouragement. I have spent so much time scraping and using paint stripper and scraping and using paint stripper and scraping..... the kitchen cabinets. I have spent upwards of twenty hours with very little result to show for it. There is about a three-to-four foot section of cabinetry that is finished scraping and about three to four times that amount left to scrape, and then I will have to sand all of the cabinets smooth before finally applying one to two coats of paint to them in order to use them . Now I am not opposed to hard work, but I am opposed to wasting time. (Note to self: speaking of wasting time, make sure you save this thing after each paragraph so you don't lose it again!)

So I was calculating all of the time spent along with the remaining time needed to finish this job. It seems that I have another 60-80 hours of work left just to use these cabinets that I can't stand and had already been planning to change out in a year or two anyway. I had originally expressed to my hubby that I thought going ahead with putting in new kitchen cabinets would be a value-added service, but I did not explain the amount of time I thought it would take to get them into usable condition because I really wasn't sure about the number of hours it would take. He really wanted to just get everything unpacked so we could actually be moved in so I decided to try to make these cabinets work. After hours of cleaning with a vinegar/detergent solution to try to get rid of the dirtiness and the stench inside the cabinets, finding out that the stench was still present and then all the scraping and paint stripper just led to complete discouragement for me.

I expressed my discouragement to my hubby yesterday and explained that I really think we would be better off going ahead and putting in new kitchen cabinets. He was frustrated by my ideas, and we just seemed to be starting to get into an argument. After some heated words, he expressed to me that if we do decide to do the kitchen cabinets we will have to redo the window first. The way he said it made it sound like it was an astronomically big job that we just couldn't get into. I got upset because it seemed that he was saying that we couldn't do it, but I was thinking that we should just jump right in and start the big projects. His reasoning for his comments was that we needed to figure out our finances to make sure we could afford everything along with the fact that if we put the kitchen cabinets in first but there is not a replacement window the same size as the existing, non-functional window, then we will only be able to put a smaller window in and will have to patch the area around the window. He reminded me that the end result wouldn't look good. I agreed with him! Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to comment that his attitude toward the whole project just seemed negative and that was what was discouraging me. Later that day he came up and just held me. That simple act did so much to smooth over any amount of discouragement I had been feeling.

When I explained the sheer amount of time wasted on the existing cabinetry and compared that to the amount of time it would take to put in new cabinets, he actually agreed that we should go forward with the kitchen first and then get the bathrooms remodeled next. We both agree that having the kitchen and bathrooms remodeled will go a long way toward reselling the house in the future, and if we stay here, it will be more enjoyable to have a nice kitchen and bath. In the meantime, while I am working on researching the kitchen remodel, he is going to investigate the upstairs bathroom plumbing that needs repaired so we can actually use the upstairs shower. We need to let the downstairs tub dry out so that we can caulk it. If we don't do this pronto, we could end up with some water damage behind the tub, which could lead to more costly repairs we would rather avoid. Long story short: eventually we both came to the conclusion that we actually agree with each other but we have different ways of expressing ourselves.

I honestly think that my hubby's real issue with going forward with the kitchen was because he was getting a little squirrelly living out of boxes. He had expressed that it was really starting to get to him toward the end of last week, so I regrouped and came up with another plan that hopefully will help us to actually get "moved in" and make this house our home. On Saturday I picked out a "pantry" cabinet for all of our food that has been scattered all over our dining room/office (it's a big room) including on top of the computer armoire, on the desk and on the book case as well as some items that remained in two boxes in the kitchen. I put the cabinet together Saturday afternoon/evening with my hubby's help in getting the handles installed, and then yesterday I put all of the food into the "pantry". Today I am planning to unpack all of the dishes onto the bookcase in the office and on the baker's rack in the kitchen. I also am planning to get the desk boxes and the boxes of stuff for the entertainment center and the living room unpacked in the next couple of days so we don't have to live out of boxes.

My plan is to set this house up, including installing the remainder of the window treatments this week. I will then research the kitchen remodel, including having someone out to quote the windows we want to replace, and then will get to work. I want our house to be our home while we are doing the remodel projects, and this situation seems to have pushed us into these plans. Sometimes it's hard to know what to do first until you live somewhere for a few weeks and really get a sense of what needs doing the most and first. Then you can come up with a plan. It seems that I had to live this experiment in order to understand this concept.

But we sure have had some excitement along the way (uh, the stench, the dirtiness, the disarray, the broken ice maker, the fire, the gas stove, the rat turds on top of and behind the dishwasher and the nasty floor underneath it and that's just some of the wild adventures we've had). And now that I have beat discouragement, I must move forward with a plan, the kind of plan that actually gets something done. Hey, if nothing else, I have faith that will move mountains, even if I don't have the ability to do everything at once.

Happy Home Improvement!