We just had our kitchen renovated and I’m almost embarrassed to tell you how happy I am with the end result.
I won’t go into great detail because I don’t want to make anybody jealous, but since the fix, walking into our kitchen is a whole new almost religious experience.
If you’d asked me 15 years ago if a new kitchen could make me happy, I would have said “Of course not. It’s only a room.”
And I would have been wrong.
I could describe the makeover in great detail but I won’t because I don’t want to bore you plus I’m really lousy at that kind of writing, so I’ll just tell you how much fun the whole renovation was, from start to now. And if you think I’m being sarcastic, we’ve never met.
And here’re 5 reasons the new kitchen at Pete’s Blog&Grille was such a joyous process.
- Azerbaijan.
That first one even took me by surprise.
But yes. Azerbaijan, the country.
Emil, the subcontractor who installed our new vinyl floor that I can slide across in my socks, immigrated to Canada from Azerbaijan a few years ago, and fact is, I’ve only met one other Azerbaijanian, and weirdly, I felt it necessary to blog about her, too.
Back in Azerbaijan, Emil was a history and anthropology teacher and participated in some archeological digs in Mesopotamia. When the time came time to move our fridge which hadn’t been budged since we moved in, I warned Emil, “This might be like one of those archeology digs you went on. Don’t be surprised at what you find behind it. .”
Then, when he did pull it out, we found a long-abandoned big plastic spoon. I was like, “Look!. They used tools!”
Emil, clearly a gentleman as well as a scholar, laughed at my cleverness.
A few days later I realized I’d missed the chance to channel my late brother Ed with, “That was no ladle that was my knife.”
- Stompin’ Tom
“Whose signature,” Kieran MacDonald asked me the first day of the renovations, “is on your guitar?”
Kieran is one of the partners in MacDonald Contracting, which we hired to do the job. On day one of the project, Kieran came into the living room to discuss next steps but noticed my six string, which has country singer Stompin Tom Connors’ on it. Turns out, Kieran, who was born in Saskatchewan, has Prince Edward Island-born parents (like Stompin’ Tom) and he was really interested in hearing how my guitar got Connors’ name magic-marker’s on to it. And as I learned over the years, people who are curious about the world are always interesting. Having Kieran here for the renovations was a real treat. - Ditto his colleauges
Memo to anybody getting household renovations done. When MacDonald Contracting is on the job, you get more than renovations you get personality and your world
5. Reno, at last.
PetesBlog&Grille 