Sentence First

Oh my gosh, I just realized I've been lax on filling you in on some belated verdicts regarding the Tortoise Project usually referred to as The Kitchen. So here goes:

First of all, remember this?

Well, we've decided it is definitely not the same as the old kitchen floor, which we uncovered the last portion of when the cabinets came out. We're pretty sure it is the same tiles, however, just put down in a different pattern. Although I can't imagine what would have made them change it up. That kitchen floor was stunning.

Gag.

Second of all, as regards the whole breakfast-nook conundrum, we have decided, for now, to do...

Da da-da daaaaa....

Nothing!

That's right: we'll just finish the kitchen as far as walls and paint and stuff, and then slide the table over to the corner and live with it a while. Maybe someday we'll get around to doing something else. In fact, Johnny seems to be coming around to my whole corner-bench idea that started the kerfuffle in the first place.

(How could I have forgotten about the debate technique that involves pretending to agree with him until he sleeps on it and comes around to my side? Dang! I could've avoided a whole week's worth of donnybrooks!)

Oh, and speaking of finishing the kitchen as far as walls and paint and stuff:

I've been crippled by a few decisions that really should have been made weeks ago -- specifically regarding woodwork. See, I don't know if I've ever mentioned it before, but I spent two freaking years stripping woodwork in the living room. I am really not emotionally ready to start all that again -- plus I can't say I relished the experience of picking scabs out of my nose without at least the accompanying weight loss that a coke habit would bring. But three big pieces of kitchen trim that it turns out did not get ruined when we did the first half of in 2006 are already stripped. Johnny did it. And I hated the thought of just painting them over. Then again, those are only three. Out of like nine or ten. So what to do, what to do, what to do?

Things only got more complicated with the wainscoting. It was half-painted already, so we had to strip it all or paint it over. It seemed like, if we were going to paint it, we might as well just get new stuff -- but why get new stuff when we would never have planned on getting any in the first place if we hadn't found the old stuff there? Then again, there is a great swathe of it missing where the back door used to be, and it's not like you can just iron out the old stuff and make it stretch to fit. Yet it seemed like such a shame to rip it out.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

On Friday, Johnny asked me for verdicts on these things once again, and once again I stood slack-jawed in the middle of the kitchen trying to make up my mind. What to do, what to do, what to do? Finally, feeling pressure to say something, I started flapping lips.

"The thing is," I said, "I spent so long stripping that woodwork in the living room. This kitchen woodwork is the exact same stuff, and it really is beautiful. It seems a shame to not strip it and pull the wood look through -- except of course there's different trim in the dining room, which is annoyingly located between the living room and kitchen. Plus it seems sort of dumb to have one half of the kitchen be all new and the other half be all refinished-original. And also now I'm starting to feel a bit bad about what we've done to the kitchen so far. I mean, I know we didn't have a choice, but..."

"So, okay" said Johnny. He'd had it to his tits with my waffling, I think. "Here's what we do:

"We pull all the old trim out of the kitchen and put in new stuff to match the new back hall and master bedroom."

"But," I said -- he held up a finger.

"We save the old woodwork, you strip it when you feel like it, and when you're done we put it in the dining room to match the living room. "

Gasp!

"And, the wainscoting?"

"Pull that out, too. Clean it up. If there's enough of it left in decent shape, we put it in along one dining room wall, as an accent. Put it along the wall that backs up to the kitchen, even, as a sort of nod to where it used to be."

GASP!

"That way, the back of the house will be all new, and the front will be all old."

And that was it. Decided. Done. Makes perfect sense. And, best of all, I don't have to make any more choices.

Garsh, but I do love that little man.


Now all we have to do is actually do it.