Hi there! Are you having a good weekend, or do you own your home?
I ask because I am renovating our kitchen. Generally speaking, I have been renovating our kitchen for the past 10 months. Specifically speaking, I am sitting in a pile of nails and drywall dust, re-evaluating 10 months of life choices.
On the plus side, my current situation, involving no money, no free time but lots of Band-Aids, does qualify me to Davesplain the kitchen-renovation process, hopefully saving a few marriages and sanities along the way.
Before you head to the appliance store for a new wall oven, or reach for a hammer and start swinging, you should sit down and set a budget. Personal budgets are extremely useful in helping manage your finances, and also you should eat less red meat, exercise more and floss your teeth every five minutes.
But let’s say you are in charge of a large, publicly funded project or Crown corporation, and not entirely clear on what the term means. A budget is a financial plan that sets out what you are going to do and how much money you want to spend.
I should be clear that in a kitchen reno, you will end up spending way, way more than that, but it’s nice to have a budget to refer back to when your spouse wants to include something dumb, like a fancy “baker’s stand” for unnecessary kitchen knickknacks instead of something critical and life-affirming like a kegerator.
You will spend more than what is in your budget because a) inflation of goods and services since the last time you had to do any work on the house, which was probably never; b) it’s just one of those fundamental laws of the universe, like thermodynamics, electromagnetism and painfully stubbing your little toe on the coffee table EVERY DAMN DAY; and c) you really have no idea what you are doing.
Having no idea what I am doing is very on-brand for me and most of the other men I know, by which I mean every single man I know or have met or read about. Which brings me to Step Two: Decide which jobs to hire a professional for, and what to do yourself in order to, hypothetically speaking, “save money.”
You will need to think about what kinds of jobs you are comfortable doing on your own. Write those down, and then throw the list away, because you also need to think about what kinds of jobs you are capable of doing.
Like all men, I am initially comfortable doing a lot of things that I do not know how to do, contravene municipal safety regulations and undermine common sense.
It is with this in mind that early in the year, I pointed at our 32-year-old, dilapidated kitchen and — with a straight face — assured my wife: “Of course I can do it!”
Step Three is to make a list of the things your current kitchen lacks, and the things you otherwise don’t like about it. For example — and I am totally making up this wild example, which would be very embarrassing if true — only one of the four burners on your stove functions, and you just keep making due for about five years.
Go ahead and dream a little, even if it’s about including totally reasonable new appliances like a kegerator, but don’t include things that are superficial, easy fixes, like a dead raccoon on the lazy Susan. You should just bend over and get rid of that.
Speaking of bending over, not having to do that ever again is high on my list, and a big reason for our kitchen renovation.
Specifically, no more cupboards at ground level, requiring spelunking gear to root around on hands and knees to find a missing Tupperware lid. We are replacing all of those awful cupboards with drawers.
How you like to use your kitchen will help determine what you want to change about the old one. For example, some people enjoy spending a lot of time preparing elaborate meals for ungrateful, self-absorbed relatives who can’t be bothered to –
What was that, dear? Who, me? Nothing. I’m just writing about the kitchen reno and how much I’m looking forward to the family Christmas dinner you are going to make for everyone. No, I won’t mention the burners on the old stove. No, of course I won’t talk about the raccoon! Sheesh.
Where was I? Ah, the part about planning the new kitchen. You will want to analyze the available space by taking careful measurements and then consider how you want to use the kitchen area.
You will want to, but you will not actually do all that because you are not Marie Kondo and also because, take it from me, tape measures are harder to use than they look.
One thing you do have to figure out is where the new appliances go. Have you heard of the “kitchen work triangle?” This is the idea that the positions of your refrigerator, sink and stove should form a triangle shape so as to maximize the damage and spray pattern when you drop a jar of jam on the new tile floor.
Everyone has an idea of what their dream kitchen looks like. As you navigate the process of planning, designing and then installing a new kitchen, remember to ask yourself: Is it really so bad to eat out more often?
