Kitchen Love

“Do you need more cabinets here?” Mr. Wonderful said loitering in the kitchen.

“No,” I said unloading the dishwasher.

“Do you need more light?”

“No.”

“More space?”

“No.”

“Well I do.”

Mr. Wonderful was interested in my room? How odd.

During escrow for the House both of us had signed the bank’s papers in blood, sweat and multiple fears. Both of us had pledged that both of us would pay the mortgage every month for the next 380 years or both of us would be booted to the curb by David Beckham. But a funny thing happened on moving day—the House didn’t belong to both of us—it got divvied up between us. Mr. Wonderful claimed the office, work room, living room, spare bedroom and entire guesthouse while I got the run-down kitchen. Life was not fair.

In the first weeks of living in the House every night after dinner I would linger in the dingy kitchen while he retreated to the airy spare bedroom, the bright living room or went roller blading in the spacious guesthouse.

With disinfectant, buckets of paint and countless trips to The Home Depot I banished the kitchen’s offensive faded colors, grimy walls and dead lizard, thereby making my only room in the House my favorite room in the House.

I was smitten with kitchen love.

I was not alone. Mr. Wonderful knew a good thing when he saw it. It started small. Most indiscretions usually did. After several years of marriage the shine could rub off even the happiest of relationships and when that happened women and men acted out. Like every member of my fairer sex I coped by shopping. Meanwhile Mr. Wonderful took the path of all masculine brutes: he started spending time with… something else.  Which was oh, so far from wonderful.

While I was purchasing skirts, jeans and pants, he was playing with piecrust dough. While I was buying cowboy boots, he was canoodling with the Cuisinart. While I was buying knick knacks, he was buying gifts for her—for my creation, my best friend,  my kitchen! He started with extra drawers then graduated to massage oils for her wood counters. He took better care of her than his car.

He was smitten with kitchen love.

In the evenings I lingered in the kitchen and so did he. Seated on the opposite side of the table he scanned the internet for ideas to improve her, to make her more appealing, to make her more beautiful. He was so focused on this goal he no longer wanted to eat in, eat out or roller blade anywhere. Everything he did was now about her and for her. The happy conjugal life we’d shared was as present as last summer’s ice cream cone. I’d been warned fixing up a house while living in it put severe stressors on a marriage but I didn’t realize a single room could be total home wrecker. OMG Maybe my husband would leave me for… my kitchen. Was there a support group for that?  

Mad with kitchen love he drew up so many plans for her he released them in a multi-volume kitchen repair book series with corresponding iPhone app and Tumblr video site. 

“I’ll put in recessed lighting here,” he said showing me book seven of his 16-volume set.

“The kitchen doesn’t need it.”

“I’ll install more cabinets here.”

“I don’t need—”

“And more counter tops here and here.”

“No one needs this!” Couldn’t he see his indiscretions? His misplaced affection? “It’s all about her all day, every day, 24-7!” I said stamping my new cowboy-booted foot in frustration.

He kinked an eyebrow, “Who are you talking about?”

“The kitchen, you’re leaving me for my kitchen!” He asked me to elaborate about my fears and after I did, he pulled me close reassuring me that he was not in love with a space but his married, human partner, although she possessed an overactive imagination and gave human characteristics to inhuman places. We made up. Life was fair.

“All these kitchen improvements,” he said kindly, “I’m doing them for us.” My heart melted, my reason returned. 

“Can we improve the kitchen--together?”

A grin spread across his face. “I’d like that.”

In the end our kitchen love reminded us we were smitten with each other.

I sat beside him at the table where we both discussed the plans for our kitchen’s second remodel. We were on the same page again. Ahhh, life was wonderful.

Remodeling Connections

"All things are connected," observed the Victorian author E.M. Forester.

Clearly he had remodeled a kitchen.

When my husband and I embarked on our kitchen remodel we decided to do it on the cheap, which was a win-win situation: Mr. Wonderful liked my frugality and after "redoing" our guestroom together, I liked that he still liked me.  DIY home remodels had fractured stronger relationships than ours, so I was thrilled he was game to tackle the hardest room in the house on my bare-bones budget.

Our planned remodel consisted of painting the cabinets, replacing their hardware and installing a backsplash (that was both practical and gorgeous; another win-win!)  And that was where we planned to finish the remodel.  But plans are things you make before your kitchen collapses around you.  What we didn't plan for was Forester's insight: "All things are connected".   Let me tell you, the bookish Brit wasn't kidding.

A kitchen is connected to a stove, so we bought one.  A stove is connected to an overhead hood, so we purchased one.  A hood is connected to a ceiling vent, so we busted through to the roof and made one.  A ceiling hole is connected to repair work, so we insulated and replastered.  Hoods are connected to symmetry, so once our narrow stove was centered under the hood it produced gaps on either side of it... and gaps as wide as the Grand Canyon aren't connected to anything but needed to be, so we made two cabinets to fill them in.  New cabinets are connected to finding things easily or why else would you bother installing the darn things in the first place?  So we built pull-out drawers.  Pull-out drawers are connected to special parts, so we special ordered their specialness despite their extra special arrival delay.  All of this stuff is connected to our money, which was in shorter supply now than when we'd started this %&#@$ DIY project, which was all your cheap, frickin' idea!

The money, the stress of cooking in a lumberyard, the constant scrapping-and-making of plans, this gentle readers, was why relationships broke during DIY projects!

E.M. recognized the ugly truth of remodels but he also gave me the solution.  I walked out to Mr. Wonderful's work bench.  Sawdust covered his dark hair, band-aids were wrapped around three of his fingers.  He set his drill down.

"I'm making steak for dinner," I said.
"Great I'm starving..." he said giving me the first smile of the day.  "Crap, then I have to hook up the stove again."
"Nope.  We're grilling out."
"Yes" he said high-fiving me.

It's connections, people.  With all the kitchen, stuff, crap in a remodel don't forget to connect to the people.  Because... all things are connected.

Kitchen Remodel: Backsplash Installation

“I got the tiles for the kitchen backsplash,” I told Mr. Wonderful.

“Good,” he said while shaving in the bathroom.

“I got the grout for the tiles.”

“Good.”

“I called the handyman to install it.”

“No way!” he said nicking his chin.

Since buying The House my husband had turned into a Do-It-Yourself maniac.  It started small with him installing handles on the closet doors the week we moved in and grew with each DIY success until now he wanted to single-handedly expand the kitchen to feed 80, add a helicopter landing pad and build a second Griffith Observatory on our roof.  All while working a full time job.  It was crazy.  He was crazy.  He was driving me crazy.

Now he spent hours at hardware stores buying materials.  He spent days on the internet researching DIY projects.  He spent weeks avoiding local handymen. 

One of our neighbors, James, was a certified electrician.  When we first trimmed our palm trees, James thanked us by handing out his business card,

“If you need any electrical repairs, call me,” he said with a wave. 

Instead of seeing this as the friendly gesture it was, Mr. Wonderful viewed it as a challenge to his masculine virility.  I saw his chin jut out in defiance and could hear his brain screaming: Fix our electrical system?  Over my dead body!

So I said goodbye to a weekend with Mr. Wonderful.  And for the next 60 hours I worked, I went to dinner with my girlfriends, I watched every movie at Laemmle’s Polish Film Festival just to avoid being in his hair while he toiled on the remodel.  While I gallivanted around Los Angeles, he prepped the walls, applied the glue and slapped the tile suckers to it. 

Then he rested for two weeks.  After which I, again, became a weekend widow while he spent another weekend applying the grout.  This time I worked overtime at the office, I invited myself to dinner with my girlfriends and their boyfriends, I caught Laemmle’s entire Icelandic Film Fest.  I’d never seen so much ice on film.  During (another) harsh ice film scene I got a text message from Mr. Wonderful.

“Come home."

I returned to the house with coffee, sushi and ice cream.  I entered the kitchen and beheld a finished backsplash and a dirty spouse.

"It’s beautiful,” I gasped.  He ran his grout-encrusted hands through his hair.  He was beautiful.  There was nothing but masculine, virile perfection about him and his work. 

So I decided: If he really wanted to be a DIY maniac… I’d let him.