my new kitchen: completed!

I only had to wait an extra four months but now, at looooong last, my kitchen is complete.

“Complete,” of course, is relative. The hideaway stand that the mixer sits on isn’t stained. The island toekick remains unfinished. I never figured out lighting/shelving/art for my desk area, and I still haven’t found a swivel bar stool. My coffee station is still stolen goods (thanks, Pop!). We need different light bulbs in the hanging colanders. Etc, etc.

And then there’s the routine disintegration of the once-finished parts. There’s no handle on the microwave. The blinds are broken and wonky. The original cabinets need to be repainted. One of the drawer bottoms is, well, bottoming out. Floor tiles are cracking. A knob broke off the stove.

But!

BUT.

Now the entire kitchen, from one end to the other, is spectacularly serviceable, and the very last missing piece is complete: a set of open shelves built to match the already existing ones.

I had to keep asking (i.e. politely suggesting, writing it on strategically-placed to-do lists, fussing, pointedly huffing at) my husband to build them for me. I’m not sure what got his attention, but eventually he got to work.

The shelves took him all of a couple hours to build (of course), and then we had to wait a couple more days while the paint cured, and then — glory be! — I could actually use them.

Now all the drinking cups, mugs, and wine glasses are on that side of the kitchen, along with the coffee-and-tea station, and whatever beverages are in the fridge. With the glasses out of that tight corner, traffic is more evenly spread around the kitchen.

(The water pitchers are still back in the corner, but they’re used less frequently. Besides, I like the all-ceramic look of those shelves versus the all-glass look of the new ones.)

My cousin-in-PA gave me the lovely vine-y plant a few months back and it’s been going nuts. It’s the ideal house plant for me: lots of lush green for practically zero maintenance. Plus, it thrives in shade so it’s the perfect hit of bright in what would otherwise be a gloomy corner. Just the other day, I pinched a few starts off the mother plant and stuck them in a glass of water — I’ve decided I want a whole forest of these plants.

I took these photos first thing the other morning, in a rare moment of calm when the kitchen was all tidy clean. A couple hours later, it was, as usual, bubbling with projects and messes.

Which is exactly the point of a kitchen in the first place.

This same time, years previous: wrangling sheep, crispy almonds, fun and fiasco 2, I went to church with a whole in my skirt, Easter chickens, chocolate peanut butter eggs.

Jennifer Jo lives with her husband John and their four children on five acres in rural Virginia where she (kinda-sorta-maybe) homeschools the kids, gardens, bakes, and reads. You can find more of her musings and lots of recipes at her web-log mamasminutia.blogspot.com.