If sent to the grocery store with only four things to buy, I’ll return with five or six, but only three will be on the original list. That’s how my brain works, but I can remember conversations from a year ago. A prime example is our first visit to the house on the four-acre-wood. We walked into the open house, the real estate agent hosting the event was perched on a stool in the kitchen. We exchanged greetings, he passed over his business card and a pen with his name running up the side, waved his arm across the room, and said, “It’s a great house, but the kitchen is a little dated.”

My first thought (and I can’t speak for Susan) was that it didn’t look that bad to me, the granite countertops were nice and it was larger than any kitchen we’ve ever had. Fast forward a couple of months and the house was ours.

For years our golden hour has been the time of dinner preparation. I love to cook, it was my therapy after work. Glasses of wine are poured, music is turned on, and the events of the day are discussed.

Now we have a new home, I’m retired, but the golden hour remains the same. It wasn’t long before the words of the real estate came back, yeah the kitchen is dated, the cabinets are dark, the little electric cooktop was not what we wanted. We started exploring options. The first was to have the cabinets repainted but rework them to allow the changes we wanted. No one seemed to be able (or willing) to do that. Next was having the cabinets refaced, but with the changes in configuration that we wanted. Turns out that was just as expensive as starting from scratch. So the decision was made, we have a new house, newly retired … let’s get the kitchen we want. Was there project creep and budget overruns, oh yeah, regrets … no. The kitchen is the heart of the home and dinner prep is still the golden hour for the three of us.

Tim, Susan, and Mimsy

(details and remodeling experiences to follow)