Under a Kitchen, Part 2 — Under a House

I only had one meltdown during our time without a kitchen, which I feel is an admirable amount for a two-week window of living in a dust-filled house with extremely limited first-floor access.

At the end of last week, we were finally able to move the stove back into the kitchen and to start assembling the boxes and boxes of drawers stacked throughout the first floor. This week, the fridge went back into place and we slid those drawers right into their new homes.

Ikea assembly is awful, but also not so awful, but also a little awful. By the time you get the hang of things, it's over. The kitchen manuals have a lot of what I like to call 'Bonus Instructions', which are like a Choose Your Own Adventure within the assembly manual, except that you don't want to choose the wrong adventure because then your kitchen won't work.

The real reason you are here is probably to see some Before and After pictures. It's the whole reason I'm here, too. We're about 90% of the way done, which seems like as good a time as any to deliver you a visual update.

The corner cabinet's farewell tour:

We don't quite know what to do with all of this new storage space! The counters should be installed in about a week, so we're getting by with some more makeshift situations - which we are all too familiar with - until they arrive. Some more finishing touches and we are home free.