9 Circles of Hell Kitchen Remodel, pt. 3

For those of you behind....come on already, keep up!  Just kidding...Here is  Part 1 of the saga, and for your continued amusement at our expense you can read Part 2.

Circle 7: Violence
Oh heck yeah, remodeling a Kitchen is nothing if not violent.  You should have seen the glee in the eyes of the kids when I said: "Oh you want to hit your sister?  Here's a hammer, go hit the nasty cabinets instead!"  Those kids were all about violently beating the crap out my old kitchen like stink is on you-know-what!  I will say they did a fantastic job of tearing everything apart....why am I not surprised?  I guess I should have looked in their rooms more frequently, as after a month of me being distracted by said kitchen their rooms pretty much resemble the demolished kitchen too.

Of course, when violence is involved, it doesn't seem to limit itself to inanimate objects.  Take this lovely picture of me, for example:

Vice grips -v- Thumb...Vice Grips WIN!

I was pulling nails out of the baseboards with a pair of torture implements from the early 1900's vice grips when the hook and eye type closure decided to latch....right on my thumb.  I had a VERY attractive blood blister for about a month.

HH and I would spend our 20 minutes we took before collapsing asleep in exhaustion at night taking inventory of the day's battle scars.  We combined had a total of 9 head bumps, 3 lacerations, 1 million bruises, 1 pulled bicep, 2 swollen wrists, 10 nail puncture wounds (yes we checked and we were both up to date on our tetanus shots), and various other injuries.  In the war of the Kitchen -v- Us, I'd say the kitchen won most of the battles.

In the end we did end up winning the war by getting the old kitchen to relinquish its dominance over our home, and we celebrated greatly...for 5 minutes...before we passed out in exhaustion.

Take that you old ugly kitchen.  We win, you are going
to the landfill...right where you belong!

Circle 8: Fraud
Oh yeah! This circle was probably the hardest for a couple of nerdy geeks to accept.  I mean, we spend our lives deciphering the B.S. from the truth statistically (yes, 90% of it really is B.S. too).  Our acquiescence to being frauded came mostly from the web, instruction manuals, and other people who claimed to be PROFESSIONALS! 

We would wonder how to put in a 3 way switch for a light fixture....being nerds, we turned to the almighty Google for the answer.  Those search engines are EVIL as well as fraudulent! We looked at this one page from an electrician and the title was "Putting in a 3 way switch is so easy a blind monkey can do it."  Being neither blind nor monkeys we figured "no problem!"  Well....2 hours and 20 combinations of Black-White-White-Green wires later we felt like this :

Blind and NO thumbs...Doh!

Then there were the "experts."  These folks must have gotten some really great laughs at HH and my expense.  We'd go to the Orange Box From Hell (OBFH) store and ask a question...they'd give us an answer that basically made us feel like were were idiots for not figuring it out...you know the "Oh that's so easy, you should be embarrassed for even asking that" type of response.  We'd get home and try to replicate what they said only to find out 1. They told us wrong (probably on purpose, EVIL Frauds!), or 2. the tool they told us would work fine for the job actually did not so we'd have to go back to the OBFH store and spend more $$$ there.  I swear, my paycheck for the next 6 months is just signed over to the OBFH. 

Nicism....every project you do takes twice as long as you think and costs 3 times as much money. 

Manuals.....what a joke.  Those damn things should have a warning on them! Part A does not fit in Part B, and how about including all the damn parts next time???



Circle 9: Traitors

We like to call the traitors, vendors.  These are the folks who promise something will be delivered on a certain date, but then don't show up or call.  Or the "nice people" who PROMISE that they are the best and have the most awesome customer service...until they get your money!  We had a delivery company put a ding in our brand new refrigerator.  When I called them (before the check cleared, I may add) they were all like: Oh momginerd, we are SO sorry, we will be sending out someone to look at that right away, we pride ourselves on our customer service!"  Ironically the check cleared the next day and we are still waiting for our replacement door....3 weeks later!

All in all, HH and I are proud of our accomplishment.  The Kitchen isn't perfect, but it is 10000% better than the 1970's special we had before.  We went from avocado appliances to stainless....boring white walls with 8 cabinets on soffits to 28 new cabinets and gorgeous Canyon Sunrise walls. 

Will we ever do a project of this magnitude again....HELL no!

Till next time,

Nic