Today is Day 21 of our kitchen remodel.  At three weeks, it feels more like three months.  This is a good time to address and “bad and ugly” parts of the project.

Remodeling projects are disruptive, no matter how good and polite your contractors are.  Our kitchen contractor Al is incredibly customer-friendly.  He straightens up and vacuums the entire kitchen daily.  He’s so neat we plan to hire him to come in once a week after the job is over.

A “bad” part of the project includes the loss of our garage, which has become the workshop/storage area.  Unlike some people, I believe a garage is actually designed to store cars.  Right now, it more closely resembles an old-fashioned supply house.  Tile, mortar, cabinet parts and tools are clustered everywhere.

A bigger “bad” is the lack of organization that comes with a remodel.  We relocated all of our food and miscellaneous kitchen stuff to other parts of the house.  For the first week, it was kind of fun – like camping.  But after 21 days, the joy is gone.

An “ugly” part of the project is all the dust.  Despite Al’s vacuuming fetish, we still get a daily layer of dust.  On the bright side, I’m hoping this strengthens my immune system as we head into allergy season.

A worse “ugly” is the collection of dishes that have piled up in our laundry tub.   A week ago we lost our kitchen sink because the cabinets needed to be installed.   So we started collecting dirty dishes in our laundry tub, anticipating of the arrival of the dishwasher.

The dishwasher arrived yesterday as planned.  Unplanned was the optional dent it sported.  I distinctly remember declining the dent option.  It appears we will be living with a “tub-o-dishes” for a while longer.

We’re halfway through our six-week project.  This is where my former marathon training will come in handy because it feels like we’re about to “hit the wall”.  We will push through and focus on the finish line, just a few weeks away.