Kitchen

Well, somewhere between my sister’s jewelry box and my mom’s jewelry box I got the wildly unsubstantiated notion that I might be accidentally turning into a woodworker. In a fit of fevered delusion I decided to update my kitchen in Hawaii from 1970’s high end design to, well, something else; I wasn’t quite sure what because I’d never even contemplated what the final project should look like. Valuable life tip from your Uncle Scott – have a plan before you tear out the first thing!

So me and my trusty Ryobi battery operated tool set attacked the kitchen (with the help of my collapsing Ryobi table saw). After about eight months of not having an intact kitchen I wound up with something better than I started with and I had picked up some valuable lessons along the way (ie, butt joints aren’t worth a tinker’s damn in cabinet door construction, poplar is MUCH cheaper than maple and looks just a good under paint, and wives with torn up kitchens are wonderful motivational instruments!).

I had to add a few cabinets, build a pantry/microwave shelf, moved a few cabinets, refaced most cabinets and replaced the sink and counter top but in the end I’d spent under $2000 in materials and come sale time the realtor made sure that she left ‘before’ pictures for each prospective buyer. She says it added $20k to the sale of the house. Who knew?

-- Mistake? No, that's just an unexpected design opportunity....