This afternoon our power suddenly went out when a local transformer blew. Brian works from home and relies on power and wifi to do his job, so off he went to a local coffee shop to work. I stayed home and tried to nurse Audrey to sleep but she wasn’t having it. Freya sat up in her bedroom making a racket until she finally passed out.

The juice was back on about an hour later. Crock pot hadn’t lost much heat, so our house was still filled with the scent of pot roast. However, cable and internet were still out, so no internet or TV. To place the cherry on the cake, the garbage truck forgot to collect our trash this morning, despite driving through our street (Freya and I watched). So, a trifecta of utility fails today.

I listened to the radio and worked on the kitchen remodel budget. It has crept into the living room and hallway as we are now getting all the hardwood done at once. The flooring is priced out now, so I put together a semi-final total of all materials for the remodel (flooring, cabinets, granite counters, windows, and appliances). Factor in labor and we’ll be right around our budget. A friend of mine told me a couple days ago that their kitchen remodel went $30k OVER budget. I can’t even imagine how extravagant a project is where thirty thousand dollars is the cost overrun. Ours is average I suppose (around $20k), which is not bad given that we are getting granite, an island, pretty nice cabinetry, and 480 square feet of hardwood floor. Bright side!

Our entire wedding, reception, and honeymoon clocked in at $15,000, and it was crazy to learn how “inexpensive” that was for a San Francisco affair. Thinking back now, I would have cut a few costs, since that seems insane for what amounts to a party, an overpriced dress, and a vacation, but back then we had no kids and two incomes, so the cash was thrown around much more liberally.

Anyhoo. It’s getting close. Estimated ship date for cabinets is set at 4/22. So demo and flooring prior to that, and cabinet install and counter after that date. We could have this whole thing wrapped up in the first week of May. I think about that every time I am furiously pushing stuff around to find twelve more square inches of counter space to work with or stepping on one of the peeling stickem tiles on the floor.

In a month we could be unpacking and settling into my dream kitchen. And never have to remodel another one again!