Kitchen Transformation

Sometimes it is just easier to do things when my housemates are out of town. I share my home with my parents (bought it from them last January). They are the best roommates I have ever had. Admittedly, the bar wasn't set very high. My first roommate was one sister - she wanted to throw me out after a week. I was about 17 at the time, so I don't blame her. My second roommate was my other sister. I wanted to throw her boyfriend out of the window after a week. He ate my food and laid around the apartment all day. Hmmm...maybe I understand my first roommate's problem with the 17 year old me!

My next roommate was a strange little woman - looked a bit like an Ewok. She couldn't sleep with the air conditioning on, so I survived a summer in Richmond bathed in perspiration. She also had a cat who like to walk on the window sill outside my second floor bedroom. And she seemed to blame me for the fact that the window had no screen...but since she was the only person on the lease, I couldn't call the apartment manager to replace it. Holy cow! I was an illegal tenant!

My next roommate was the worst. Well, only one of the three was bad...the gay dancer was fun and taught me to color my hair. The girl stayed in her room most of the time (remarkable because it was the size of a walk-in closet). But the other dancer was a nightmare. He was a crack user, which led to incredible mood swings. The rest of the roommates and I decided it was best to keep all the kitchen knives locked in the closet of my bedroom. Just seemed prudent. He stuck me with rent and a $700 phone bill (his boyfriend was calling him collect from Puerto Rico).

My future roommate?

So, when people ask, "why do you live with your parents?" The answer is easy. With the way my luck was running - my next roommate was going to be a serial killer that ate all my pop tarts.

Sharing the house is great! I let them use the laundry room and kitchen as much as they want. I am rewarded with clean clothes and good food. Win, win. Since we are all busy people, projects around the house sometimes get delayed. And delayed. And forgotten. That is the case with the new kitchen floor. The flooring was a gift from my sister Denise's in-laws (sister in-law, I think...) and was delivered to our house in 2012. It lived on the screen porch for awhile...then got moved to a shed...and gradually moved out of our consciousness. Then Mom and Dad left for their annual week in Hollywood, Florida...and I had a bright idea!

Thanks to a very talented subcontractor that I have worked with in my job, the floor was laid in one Saturday morning (starting at 7:30am...ouch!) for a very reasonable amount of money. Jerry said when he finished, "now the real work starts...moving it all back in!" Thanks to my patient siblings and their hard work - not only did we move the stuff back in - we increased the efficiency of the kitchen and got rid of some clutter at the same time!


I don't have any before pictures. Just picture stuff on the countertops (decrease the useful space to about 8 inches along the front) and a floor of earth-tone speckles on a field of off-white (maybe it was whiter when it was installed, many years ago...). The "new" kitchen is quite wonderful. And although it couldn't be classified as a "remodel" of a kitchen, it truly is transformed.


And Mom has already baked me cupcakes and cookies.

My Spice Tower!

Time and money well spent!