I’m deep into a kitchen renovation and the revision of a novel.
Both are all-consuming, requiring full immersion and intense decision-making. As a result, I’ve become something of a bore. It can’t be helped.
KITCHEN RENOVATION
The kitchen renovation has been long in the planning, so it’s a bit disingenuous to say that it started when demolition began. We’ve been dreaming about the changes for twenty-two years and designing it in earnest for the past eight months, discussing how the kitchen we inherited with the house could be improved to suit our multi-cook family.
There’s no question, the kitchen is the most heavily used and possibly the most important room in our house. It’s where we cook together, wash dishes together, and dance the dishes away.
Renovating the kitchen has required making a myriad of decisions about details, from the ceiling light fixtures to the flooring underfoot – and everything in between. It’s been a chance to think hard about workflow and ergonomics, and to choose appliances, cabinetry, colors and drawer pulls.
We’ve used the internet to educate ourselves about the gazillion types of fixtures available, and have enjoyed the steep climb up the learning curve of faucets, for instance. But the internet can’t tell us how that faucet feels in the hand. For that, we had to drive into town. This process taught us the importance of the kitchen faucet in our daily lives. It’s one of those essential fixtures about which we otherwise give almost no thought. To me, that’s a sign of perfection. It’s humbling to realize that good design operates sotto voce; it’s also a lesson that translates to revision.
REVISING A NOVEL
My writing studio.
I’m revising a novel I started writing the same year we moved in to this house. I’ve finished it 2001, 2006 and 2011. I’m revising it again.
As with the kitchen, there are many details to consider. In order to keep them straight in my head, I’m spending most of my waking hours absorbed in the alternate universe of the imaginary Vermont towns of Orton and Waterchase in 1958, when the interstate was coming through.
It’s a fat book filled with fascinating details about mid-century farming practices and highway construction. I loved doing the research for this book, and I included a lot of what I learned. But what I see now is that it’s the flawed characters facing hard circumstances that matter most.
The information about farming and highway construction are like kitchen faucets: they should feel comfortable and work effortlessly, without drawing attention to themselves. So this time, I’m paring the book down to the essentials of the story and rearranging the order of things to improve the pace, much like the way we’re improving the ergonomics of the kitchen.
Managing the renovation compliments working on the revision. I have to be on-site to answer the contractor’s questions, and I can escape the chaos and noise in my studio while I revise.
These two projects take up all the bandwidth in my brain, leaving me with little else to think or talk about, which in turn makes me unfit for company, and that suits me just fine. Because all I want to do is check on the progress of the new kitchen between revising chapters of this novel that is so dear to my heart.
I know, replacing a functioning kitchen with a better one and revising a good novel into an excellent one are first-world problems. In truth, it’s nice to have something other than political news with which to be preoccupied. Considering the pros and cons of drawers versus cupboards provides engrossing respite from the operatic demise of American decency.
I thought you and Tim custom built that house.
Nope. It was five years old when we moved in.
Another great blog to read. I absolutely love all of them.
I loved the kitchen that came with your home and can only imagine how lovely and functional your new one will be.
Interesting that your revision of your long in process book and kitchen bring this special kind of sameness to your mind. I am not sure if I expressed that thought correctly. I appreciate your need to touch the faucets, etc. you need. I can’t buy clothes when I cannot feel the quality of the material.
The entire kitchen project has been a success,and the new kitchen is an absolute joy to work in. Tim and I thought long and hard about making it functional, and we’ll see how well we did in just over a week: Everyone will be home and cooking together. We think it will work.
Have fun with renovation. You learn all sorts of things…like Vermont rules for faucets are different from Massachusetts….the one I liked not allowed in VT
Lowes had a better choice than Home Depot of the drawer/cupboard pulls
A trip to Springfield, VT for choosing granite is interesting…my choice had garnets in it that show up in the sunlight..
Hi Linda, Thanks for your comment and notes. The stone is one of the first items I found and will be one of the last to go in. Choosing the actual slabs required a trip to the stone yard, which was fascinating; deciding on the finish, agonizing. But these choices that seem so absorbing now will soon simply become what we live with, so I try not to get toooooo obsessed!
I think the kitchen is the most essential room in the house and the hardest one to get right. I know I didn’t get it right with ours – too much space in the centre of the room and not enough work surfaces. On the other hand it makes it a great party room with lots of space for dancing!
I’m not a religious person but I once read that in Islam, leaving a small error in a project is a good thing as it reminds us we are fallible human beings. I probably made a big error in our kitchen but I still take some comfort from that thought!
And yes, getting involved in home and other projects is a good way of keeping cheerful despite the very gloomy world events. When I practise the saxophone, I almost forget that here in the UK we are heading for the Brexit….
Thanks for these words of wisdom and encouragement.
There are so many things about this project that demonstrate a certain amount of maturity gained on my part: my husband and I have really worked by consensus – none of the insisting that one or the other of us is right and the other wrong of years past. That we’ve designed the improvements based on how we actually use the space, and most of all, that we acknowledge that we’ll have gotten some things wrong, things that will be revealed in time.
Additionally, I already accept that we’ll stain and scratch and break things. We use our kitchen hard.
I hope that we can be as gracious as you and find the silver lining of unintended consequences. Dancing in the kitchen seems like a pretty good outcome to me. As does playing the sax.
I am utterly in love with your writing studio. What a beautiful place to work.
Me too!