The big kitchen prep

So the time has come when I have gotten so frustrated with this silly kitchen layout that I simply cannot wait any longer. I mean this was workable.

Well, the rolling dishwasher really did suck

But it was dark, cramped feeling, and not particularly functional. 

I made a grand plan--we would move around the cabinets and stove, install a dishwasher next to the sink, install new cabinets next to the fridge where the old dishwasher was and pop some shelves on top, paint everything so that it matched, and plop on some new countertops. Sounds easy, right? (Spoiler: no, not easy.) Using our old cabinets would save tons of money, and I planned on buying Ikea's cheapest dishwasher and otherwise keeping other appliances as-is. (Ha, ha.)

I drew a lot of doodles of what I dreamed the kitchen could become before I convinced Adamo that my plan was the best plan of all plans that ever planned.

Step One was figuring out where the hell we would put everything and how to keep track of all of the moving parts. I figured a good start would be to keep track of all of the doors (this is important later, when everything is painted and looks the same). 

Here's the map! I'm so clever.

If that map made no sense to you, that's ok. It made sense to me. ;) We took off all of the doors in one sweaty night.

I've heard that taking the doors off of cabinets makes it feel more open, but this just feels more cluttered

We taped labels on the doors to keep track of them (which was especially difficult for the pantry doors, as they all seemed to be exactly the same).

Those boxes contain the doors for the new cabinet and the door cover for the dishwasher

We also put the hardware in labeled sandwich bags, which we then popped in the box holding all of the handles that I got on sale from Home Depot. It belongs together! We briefly considered having separate bags for the top hinges and bottom hinges, but that was a whole lot of extra work and wasted baggies.

They are really nice quality hinges, so we resused them

The next step was moving the kitchen. I mean, not the whole kitchen, but as the actual kitchen was going to be a war zone construction zone, I needed somewhere to cook! And maybe eat. And somewhere to keep the dishes... So I cleared out all the decorative dust catchers from the sun room and we started hauling things in.

Feels kitchen-y already! OK, not really

We brought in the kitchen cart and put it against the window; it was going to hold the toaster oven, some food supplies, my pots and pans, and (probably a bad idea but we didn't die so) a propane camp stove to cook on. Then, it was time to bring in the fridge. I was not going to have a temp kitchen without it.

I supervised the Hauling of the Fridge

Then we brought in the essential small appliances and essential food. I had already made about a month of freezer meals that were waiting in our spanking new basement freezer, but I knew that some nights I was going to want fresh food. It actually ended up feeling quite nice and cozy, with a sort of bed & breakfast vibe.

NOW it feels kitchen-y

All the non-essentials, you ask? Well, most of the spare food went into giant plastic bins and boxes that we stowed under the dining room table. All of the spare dishes and glassed went into the downstairs bathroom garden window, because we ran out of spaces...

We did wash it all before using it again because ugh

Then, we set up the dining room as our tool staging area. I knew things would spread out of the kitchen, and since it took over the dining room last time, I wanted to pretend it was on purpose this time. :P I put several layers of padding on the dining room table before putting the dropcloth on it to hide all of the boxes of food and kitchen crap.

That's the dishwasher box on the left

Now, we were ready.