Jim Dabrowski

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Kitchen Remodel Day 82

I Got a Hole in One!

Yep. Let’s see, last post was Day 74, this is Day 82. So in 8 days they were able to drill 2 holes.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. In those intervening 8 days besides drilling 2 holes they did come back and repaint the kitchen (getting paint on the cabinets and trim in the process) and a cleaning crew came in and cleaned the entire kitchen and foyer. (Why have a cleaning crew come in to clean when there is still some pretty major work to be done? I don’t know.)

But still, progress has been painfully slow lately. We actually have neighbors coming up to us now.

Neighbor What are you having done?

Us The kitchen.

Neighbor That’s it!?!

Yes, we sheepishly admit, that’s it. I get there are delays in any project, but this is getting a bit ridiculous. It’s not like we’ve been asking for a bunch of last-minute changes. They just aren’t very good at scheduling things.

Oh well, the two holes are there to be filled by an air gap for the dishwasher and a switch for the disposal. A little push-button thingie right there in the surface of the countertop.

We’re also having a pop-up outlet installed in the middle of the island. This one in fact. It’ll be a round thing you push down on and it pops up and you got 2 outlets and 2 USB ports to plug things in. When done, push it back down and it’s out of the way. We liked that idea better than hanging cords off the side to plug things in. But, of course, when the guys were here drilling holes for the air gap and the switch, they couldn’t drill the hole for the outlet because they didn’t have the right drill bits with them. So, now they’ll have to come back some time next week and finish that up.

The electrician should be here next week as well to install the rest of the electrical stuff. (Except the pop-up outlet of course, he’ll probably have to come back later to finish that up.) Then that’ll just about wrap it up for major stuff. Then comes the dreaded punch-list. We get to go around and list all the things we see wrong that we want them to come fix (like finish installing the range for example) and then wait for them to come fix it. At this rate, we’re honestly wondering if we’ll have our kitchen done by Thanksgiving. Which we’d better cause we’ll be having our families over just like we do every year.

But in the meanwhile, we’ve actually started to use it all a little bit. Last Sunday we roasted a chicken in the oven.

See, when I was busy analyzing every aspect of kitchen ranges trying to pick out the one I wanted (no, I’m not obsessive about these things, just a bit picky) the Capital range was high on the list but it came with this rotisserie. My thought at that time was, “When are we ever going to use a rotisserie?” But, in the end I liked that one the most so we got it—even if I thought I’d never actually use that giant metal fork thingie.

Flash forward to last sunday and we say, “Hey, let’s roast a chicken!” So we do.

Comes with that massive metal rod which has a place way in the back corner for you to stick it. After, of course, you impaled your meat on it. Then you just turn it on and let the rotisserie magic happen (and put a pan underneath it otherwise you’ll have a huge mess all over the bottom of your oven).

Hour or so later and, damn, that came out looking good.

So we carved it up.

And ate it.

Those beans are from our garden. The bird was stuffed with lots and lots of herbs from our herb garden as well. We were both surprised at just how juicy and flavorful it was. We could actually taste all the fresh basil, oregano and thyme I stuffed in there. It was amazing.

So guess what, we’ll be using the rotisserie again. I’m glad we got it. Oooh, maybe I’ll rotisserie the turkey for Thanksgiving!

So that’s the end of my story for today. Hope you’ll join me all next time on

The Adventures of Jim & Dena’s Kitchen

Or is it?

Jim & Dena’s Kitchen Nightmare!

Eh, whatever.

Take care,

JIm