Weekly Log
We moved this week. I’m writing this from our new temporary house in Noe Valley, late on a Sunday evening. I will keep this update relatively brief, mostly because I’m tired and also because there isn’t a lot to say about last week. It was a stressful one both at work and at home. At work because we are in the process of launching the project I’ve been working on for the last year or so, and at home because of the project to renovate the kitchen is finally happening.
We took the afternoon off on Wednesday to drive to the East bay, with the goal of placing an order for a countertop and to pick up the floating shelves from a lumberyard. Alas, the coutertop place refused to deliver to the top floor of an SF building, and the lumberyard didn’t have the kind of slab we were looking for. All was fixed by Thursday evening, thanks to our contractor going straight to the coutertop manufacter and finding an installer for it. We also found another lumber reseller that had a slab of solid oak on hand, and also went to Home Depot to order the doors. By that time, we had everything in hand to kick off the project.
We still caught up with a handful of friends over the week-end: we had a game night at our place with P. & M. on Friday evening, quickly dropped by V.’s birthday party on Saturday, and had a brief lunch at the Grove with Y., R. and their partners on Sunday. This was a good amount of social time, which came in addition to checking into the temporary housing and to packing two full rooms of our old apartment and moving the stuff we’ll need for the next six weeks from one to the other. We’re both pretty spent.
The cabinets for the new kitchen were delivered on Friday and our apartment started looking like a tetris battlefield. This was much bigger shipment than I anticipated and that required a good amount of moving stuff around to make it fit in our small space. On Saturday evening, after spending a few hours packing the kitchen, we collapsed on the couch to watch Station Eleven, surrounded by massive boxes.
Thing looked a little more orderly by Sunday afternoon:
The demolition work is starting tomorrow in the morning. The plan as stated is to rebuild the kitchen in its entirety: new cabinets, appliances, hood, sink, faucet, countertop and backsplash. We’re also refinishing the hardwood floors and getting the bedroom doors replaced. If all goes well, this should take about 4 or 5 weeks — we’ve reserved the temporary housing for 6 weeks, out of an abundance of caution.
Funny thing that happens when you have a cat and start moving furniture around: you find out about their addiction habits. All of those corks were stashed behind a bookshelf in the living room.
