To quote Andre Agassi,

“Life will throw everything but the kitchen sink in your path, and then it will throw the kitchen sink.”

Remodeling a kitchen is a serious commitment.  It’s more than we realized when we first took on this project.  One example: we didn’t budget for all the cooking we could no longer do.  We’ve been surviving on microwave dinners and Trader Joe’s ready-made salads (thank goodness those are pretty cheap!) but needless to say, dust and renovation woes aside, the cost of not having a working kitchen is high.  Little things like realizing you can’t make yourself a coffee because the coffee maker and your mugs are in boxes and you don’t even have a working fridge with which to store the creamer can add up.  Being in the office during the day and coming home to a messy, all-consuming project is NOT relaxing.  This kitchen renovation would be a major source of Angst but thankfully David and I are learning to step back and just be grateful for the experience.

Take the kitchen sink, for example.  We finally tore the old one and the rusted-through trash compactor next to it out.   You can see the picture above: it’s pretty bare.  I really, really wanted a white farmhouse sink in my new kitchen but they were just so expensive and definitely not within our $9,000 budget.  (Try googling “farmhouse sink” and you’d be surprised at how expensive they all are!)   They add so much charm and country vibes to a kitchen– and they’re really deep so they’re more than just aesthetically pleasing: they’re very functional.  On a slightly unrelated note, I puzzled over what to do with the space where the trash compactor had been.  I didn’t want to spend the money on a new trash compactor and I don’t really need a trash compactor.  After a lot of internet research, I found this single pull-out trash container on sale for less than $100, so that made me feel good!  All it needs is a cabinet door to attach to and it’s good to go.  (Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my plan for the cabinet doors!)

Anyway, I half-heartedly decided on an IKEA sink  (here are their options) because they are so affordable and kind of look like farmhouse sinks.  And after my good luck with the pull-out trash container, my thought process was “it’s good enough.  This kitchen renovation won’t create my dream kitchen anyway.  We only have $9,000.  Woe is me.  Wah wah wah.”  But then David had a super marvelous idea– check eBay for a real farmhouse sink!  We struck gold, folks.  A quick search on eBay yielded a “defected” sink that had a tiny little green speck in it, reducing the price by $400!  We could barely see it in the photos.  With shipping, we ended up spending $450 for it and I think it will be great in the space where the old sink was.

So to all of you who are remodeling or have remodeled a kitchen– I feel your pain… but I’d go crazy if I focused on the crummy parts of it!  It’s totally about celebrating the little things, isn’t it?  I mean my day was made by finding a freaking pull-out trash container and a defected farmhouse sink (who does that?!  I’m so weird!).  But really, taking pleasure in this planning stage of the kitchen renovation has made the process go from a headache to a fun activity.  I’m so blessed to have a farmhouse to be restoring and an amazing husband with whom to do it.   While sometimes the going gets tough and I feel like life is throwing everything in my path… I’m learning to take a step back and be grateful for a kitchen sink!

Lynne