Tomorrow marks my seventh week without a functioning oven. Yes, seven weeks. Let’s count ‘em, shall we? One… two… three… oh, god, that noise you just heard was my spirit stabbing itself with a serving fork. Either that, or my spirit stabbing my husband with a serving fork.
Here’s what happened.
My oven broke. To get really technical about it, that thingy that you have to pull out to light the thing got pulled out for good. And since the oven door was the detachable sort (not in a good way) and the knobs fell off when you looked at them sharpishly, we decided to replace the whole thing.
Unfortunately we then had to wait two weeks for some money to come in so we could afford to replace it.
But come that happy day, we marched into our local white goods store to order Our Brand New Oven. But somewhere somehow, in the middle of the ordering process, my husband changed his mind and decided we needed to consider renovating the whole kitchen before committing to one model or another.
For the record, my ability to talk renovations doesn’t extend much past the three minute mark, after which I start to glaze over and think about the bottle of wine in the fridge. If the conversation, say, wanders onto the topic of splashbacks and cupboard door handles, I start to think about the vodka bottle in the freezer. And if you tried, for example, to get me into some kind of FLOOR EMPORIUM to look at and discuss lino and carpet samples, then please be prepared to see me there swigging from the wine bottle and drinking straight from that vodka bottle with a straw at the same time. Just sayin’.
ANYWAY so I didn’t actually have to discuss renovations with him, I agreed to let my husband invite our friend C, who designs kitchens for a living, to come over and talk about them with him instead.
Within ten minutes of C arriving, I realised this was what’s officially known as a Bad Idea. C and my husband began running about excitedly together, talking about knocking down walls and digging a three foot deep trench down the side of the house. And in one of those horror movie moments, C’s wife – who was helping me out with that bottle of wine in the fridge – turned to me and revealed she hadn’t had running water in her kitchen or bathroom for over two years due to her husband’s own renovation project. I mean, she may as well have told me she no longer had a soul and wanted to eat my offal on toast for breakfast, such was my terror.
After C and his family left, my husband found me sobbing into my wine glass about “just wanting a fucking oven that worked”.
Luckily, my husband is a sensitive man. He saw my pain and realised it was all too much for me. He reassured me we’d just buy a replacement oven. The renovations could wait a few more years…
And then he changed his mind. Again.
Oh, he bought a new oven, all right. A good one, too. One that I am happy with – or rather, would be happy with except that it has been sitting, all warm and cozy and wrapped in plastic, cardboard and polystyrene in our garage for over a week now… while my husband has taken to one of our kitchen walls with a crowbar.
This is my kitchen now.
And no, I didn’t see that coming, either.
The fact of the matter is I’m writing this blog post in the lounge room with the fridge next to me. The contents of my entire spice rack are currently alongside my bed just waiting for someone to make a joke about ‘spicing things up’ in the bedroom. For the record: don’t make that joke. DO NOT MAKE THAT JOKE.
But I think Tiddles McGee, all of four years old, put it best. When my husband first started pulling out the cupboards, he reportedly said “I’m telling mummy you’re destroying the kitchen! She will think you’ve turned evil!”
Now where was that second bottle of vodka…
You poor thing.
Au contraire! I am rich! Rich in bitter material for this blog…
Greet your husband every night with a print out of a delicious recipe you could have cooked, smile and assure him you know how much he’d love to spend time with you all each night and you understand that he feels driven to work on the kitchen. 😉
When I was pregnant with Bugalicious, we took one look at our bathroom, which greeted us with mushrooms growing from the rotting skirting boards each morning. (we got our house cheap!) So, I spent my pregnancy visiting my aunt everyday for a shower for about 5 months.
In my case, it was great fun! Love my Aunt and cousins!
Mushrooms? There’s a food group right there, ripe for the picking…
And thanks for the advice about the recipes. I’ll let you know how I go…
OMG!!! I banned my boyfriend from ANY handy work of ANY kind at our place after one fuck up after another. I said go and practice on someone else’s place. (Next time you’re going past see dodgy front gate and half painted front door and that’s just out the front. Don’t get me started on the clothes line. Oh it’s all comin back I’m totally feeling your pain.) If you want a really awesome
post for next week just say the word and I’ll send him round.
Alternatively I’ll grab the girls armed with our very own crow bars and stage an intervention.
To think I had a faux-fair with your boyfriend! Going to have to update my RSVP profile to include ‘SORRY, NO RENOVATORS’.
I can’t talk renovations with you. Can’t. It’s only 7am and I do have a rule, no drinking before 2pm. Hope it’s all worth it in the end. Either that or you enjoy a bit of cardamom in the morning. x
Is cardamom an aphrodisiac? I really need to identify the herb’n’spice-equivalent of prosac or Xanax at this stage…
You see, when I clicked on your blog in my reader, I THOUGHT I was clicking on an infertility blog that I read. So then I started reading your post about your “non functioning oven” and I was like, “Whoa, what’s with the euphemisms?”.
So, my point is, be glad it isn’t your OTHER oven that’s broken.
Wow, that must have been confusing. Most people who come to my blog are looking for porn…
Actually, as it turns out, that ‘OTHER’ oven, too, is a little knackered after an intensive few years of baking.
C’mon. One pot dinners are all the rage. You are secretly completely on trend.
I love it that this is the sixth comment, yet the running is still wide open for:
What’s with all the herb jars in the bedroom? Are you trying to spice things up?
Only you, Idle. Only you.
Ahhh, husbands. Mine said, “What is she worried about?” when I showed him the photo of your kitchen.
Ahhh, husbands, indeed. Who’d have ’em?
:whimper:
I want a new kitchen so badly, but now I’m scared. Still I shouldn’t worry, since my financial plan is waiting for some rich unknown old relative to die and leave me his wealth so I can go and holiday on the Riviera and come home to a completely renovated home.
I like your plan, Meredith. As usual, you are ahead of the pack with your thinking.
I, on the other hand, do not want a new kitchen. I quite like having my old one to complain about…
See, this is why my husband and I live in an apartment. My husband looked at this and said, “Does he need any help?” Dear Gos, NO! My husband is working on renovating my mother’s after a flood screwed up her den… three months ago. My daughter, Miss Anarchy, is constantly telling him (so I don’t have to), “Granna is going to be SOOO mad when she sees you’re not done yet.” Oh god… Renovations… Where’s the vodka?
God bless Miss Anarchy’s little truth-telling socks. Can I borrow her to sort my husband out, too?
Feel free. But may I warn you, her truth telling socks never come off and no truth is left untold. >insert shudder here<
Oh yuck! Do you and the kids want to come and stay with the Woogs while your hubby sorts out his shit? I will help with the vodka? x
Kitchen or no kitchen, I’m there, Mrs Woog.
Then Husband loved home Renovation Projects to the exclusion of all else except Uncompleted Home Renovation projects. We went without a foyer ceiling for many years. We also went without the ONLY toilet in the house for about a week. Five of us. For a week. Five. A week.
We periodically have ‘toilet issues’ which involves me driving the kids to the local shopping centre for their hard waste disposal. Only have had to do that for a couple of days at the most. But a week? You deserve a medal. Or your own portaloo.
Wow, I don’t even want to speculate on how long that is going to take to put back together! As for how many decisions you are going to have to make about floor coverings and door knobs! My husband has left a silicon gun, loaded, in my kitchen for nearly 3 years now, and when I asked him the other day if he was EVER going to redo the seal around the sink he had the audacity to say he thought I was going to do it? WTF?
I’d be tempted to use that loaded silicon gun on my husband, if I were you…
Quote from Terry Clark after I got excited about his home renovations – “renovations are exciting in prospect and retrospect but not in aspect”.
Your pro was pretty gloomy, your as may be soul destroying but your retro will be bliss!
Mum, all of a sudden, your tiny electric stove seems positively luxurious. I might have to nick it for a couple of weeks…
Renovations make me shudder. I was pregnant, and dealing with newborns/toddlers for most of the time we were renovating our house. Too many memories of squatting on the lawn eight months pregnant and too many nights eating takeaway chicken. I’ll send a case of vodka your way, because you might need that much if your renovations take as long as ours did!! xx
Thanks, dear bigwords. I fear a case of vodka might only get me through one week, maybe two, the way I’m feeling right now!
FUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!! Am so traumatised by your reno post that I am going back to bed. I hope your kitchen picture will not haunt my dreams
Yep, I’d be going back to bed if there weren’t so many spices to step over to get there…
Does your husband know about us? Maybe that’s why he’s doing this to you.
PS: You make me LOL hard.
Yes, he knows. I thought he was ‘cool with it’ but now I’m not so sure. He keeps fingering the nail gun and asking what your name is again…
PS. I’m really glad you put the word LOL in your post-script. Just sayin’.
Bahaha!
I feel your pain, sister! But I am concerned that my husband might actually *be* your husband. He hasn’t by any chance bought a non-matching, non-fitting dishwasher on the grounds that ‘it’s what we want when we redo the kitchen…’
In an uncanny echo of you, my words were, ‘I just want a fucking dishwasher that works…’ And I drank gin, not vodka. But otherwise same.
There’s a full bottle of gin here to move onto once the vodka’s run out. I’ll toast your good name before my first slug of gin.
Oh lord. I’m sending you a case of Vodka. No sorry, make it a pallet. I have never been into renovation territory (thank god) but it doesn’t seem like a good place to be. Especially if you are married to a tradesman.
It’s a surprisingly frightening place to be but the vodka will help… I hope…
ManFriend and I are about to renovate our kitchen. And by “ManFriend and I”, I mean we are paying someone else to do it. That way the result will be a new kitchen, rather than two people who need new livers.
I’ve heard tell that outsourcing the job isn’t much easier on the liver – unless, of course, you take Meredith @ ThinkThinkers advice (see above) but that can give the credit card a good bashing.
I am putting my fingers in my ears and shouting LALALALALAA because my entire kitchen needs renovating and I don’t want to.
Dear god, don’t do it. You don’t even drink. I fear for your very soul, Veronica. YOUR VERY SOUL.
Fortunately, my husband hasn’t started any major renovations in the almost 4 years we’ve been in our home. Just a thousand minor repairs. Like the loungeroom light that was removed 2 years ago because the fitting took a high energy light bulb. I’m sure I’ll get a new light fitting soon.
Maybe the open air letterbox we have because the old one has disintergrated and putting in a new one will be a ’10 minute job’. Obviously the right 10 minutes has not yet arrived.
Perhaps the room that should be our boys’ bedroom but isn’t because it has a concrete floor that can be ‘really quickly and easily’ covered by a floating floor. One day. Maybe. Hopefully before the boys are old enough to move out of home.
Not surprisingly, I won’t let him near the kitchen. Wishing you all the best. Maybe you should get a really good looking home handyman in to fix your kitchen and take care of any other odd jobs about the house. That might speed up your kitchen renovations. 🙂
Mention it to him then show him this ad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXjPxueRaPA
My friend The Mild-Mannered Lawyer can’t stop singing the praises of the local Jim’s Mowing rep. I wonder if he does kitchens, too?
OMG, why do men do this??? Two weekends ago (on Sunday night) hubby decided to rip out our second staircase. A good small project, I had thought. Was sure it would be finished this weekend.
Instead, somehow, during the week he formulated a new plan. Let’s rip out another two walls instead. So now we have a giant 2m square hole in the foyer, fewer walls but the adjoining ones all ripped too, and a big pile of mess on the front verandah. Small project????
Worst thing: I’ve just had surgery and can’t yet drink. So I envy you there… Good luck with the kitchen, mine *only* took 3 months, amazing what you can do with a microwave and an electric frypan. Or start ordering delivery every night….
Three months? THREE MONTHS? (*runs screaming from the house*)
Kill him now, and set up with a plumber/electrician. Doesn’t your husband realise he is fucking with your sanity ? Soon, you’ll start to write rambling posts about almost nothing, instead of the ones we’ve come to know, and love you for……. 😉
Yes, imagine if I really became TOTALLY unhinged (as opposed to MOSTLY unhinged)…
Hmm. The warehouse conversion look. Interesting.
Maybe you could get together with Iris “organise everything” Beard and channel your inner Gordon Ramsey.
If I don’t have a functioning oven by end of financial year, I’m shipping Iris over here at my husband’s expense.
I have no electricity in half my house. The Fibro is snaked with extension leads, all going to the one functioning power point in the living room. One week and counting. But you win.
For once this is a competition that I don’t want to win. What the hell is that about?
Oh, I feel your pain. My eyes glaze over when my husband talks about renovating and building too … lucky for me he is a renovator and builder. Good luck, hope it’s not too much longer.
Do you have your slowcooker set up in your bathroom?
There’s a tv show here in Belgium called “Help! Mijn Man is een Klusser”, which translates to something like “Help! My husband is a handyman”. It depicts your exact situation, but often people have been living with spice racks in their bedroom for years and years… The tv show dudes organise other tradies to come in and get the job done, but the husband has to be on site “helping” too, and he is pretty much shamed for the entire duration of the show.
It seems to be a worldwide problem…
You should talk to Channel 9 and pitch the show idea, generously offering your house/husband as the pilot episode 😉
IKEA
That is all.
[…] Has anyone renovated a kitchen or bathroom? ManFriend and I will enter this scary world in a few months and would love some tips. Mainly so we don’t end up in hell’s kitchen. […]
Competition! Winner equals my father…
20 years ago, he purchased some beautiful laminate flooring for our long hallway (it’s like a million miles long and really narrow). He ripped up the carpet and removed the skirting boards as they were too low. He then purchased new boards. For one whole week he painstakingly measured the new flooring and “locked” it into place. Two thirds of the way up the hallway, he… just… stopped. In a moment of breathtaking inspiration, he decided that terracotta was a fantastic shade to paint said hallway.
Not wanting to get paint on the new floor, he started at the other end of the hallway – the end that was still concrete.
Thus, 20 years later, one half of the hallway is lemon yellow and has laminate flooring. The other end is patchy terracotta and has a concrete floor. Neither end has skirting boards. I don’t want to scare you, but welcome to your new kitchen!
PS. I wasn’t quite as friendly with alcoholic beverages at the time, but my mother did make sure there was a crapload of Baileys and Vermouth in the grocery trolley every week for quite some time…
I am so relating to this!
I am married to a builder (Really no need to say more!).
He sat down one Sunday lunch and discussed how if we added a wall and removed another the kitchen would be so much more functional. I half heartedly agreed. Being 3 months pregnant, I went to have a snooze. When I returned a couple of hours later to start dinner, there was no kitchen. He’d just ripped it out. 1 and a half weeks before my son was born, I had a functional kitchen.
We ate out for the entire 6 months…
Then there was the time he decided it would be a great idea to live in our soon to be demolished investment property for five months while we renovated our home. Conveniently, he forgot to mention that the kitchen had already been torn out…
P.S. I am very good at BBQing…
But what about the cupcakes? I’m sorry. So very sorry.
You have a lovely blog going on here. And here is an award I am bestowing on you. The Versatile Blogger Award. Check it out –
http://merrymusing.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/an-award-for-lil-old-me/
You are a stronger woman than I, NDM. FOr that reason I suggest you take that crow bar and… well, you know where I’d be swinging it. x
You know, I suspect that (in the blogging world, at least), that those are grounds for divorce. The type where he has to a)take the kids until you’ve had the chance to sleep for a year and read 100 books; fix the kitchen before he’s allowed to eat again, and pay you alimony.
So I guess, unless you’re particularlly attached to him or your offspring, this isn’t so bad after all….
😉