We are approaching the starting line on our kitchen remodel. Saturday we did some detailed measurements and took them to Lowe’s to see how the available cabinets will fit in. It was quite an adventure. It’s amazing how stressful a little bit of math and a dozen or more helpful Lowe’s employees can be. It did not surprise me at all to discover that my husband is smarter than Lowe’s computer. He generally is highly competent.

The problem was, this was just a preliminary trip. We didn’t go there wanting any help. We just wanted to look and write things down and do our own figuring. But we discovered that if you walk into Lowe’s with a piece of paper in your hand their normally hard to find employees are suddenly all over you. We couldn’t take three steps anywhere in the store without having someone stop us with a friendly, eager, “Do you need any help?”

While we were looking at cabinets, doing our calculations, and discussing our options, one of Lowe’s employees walked up to us and offered to help. At first we declined but she talked us into letting her plug all our measurements into the computer. And she quickly determined that we could not do what we had planned to do, specifically, that the lazy susan corner cabinet that we absolutely must have will not fit.

To be fair to Lowe’s employees, they are used to dealing with people who don’t know what they’re doing – with people who can fit a few puzzle pieces together but wouldn’t dream of trying to re-locate a sink, for example, or to convert a 30 inch base cabinet into a sink base for a 25 inch single bowl sink instead of using the standard 36 inch sink base. We didn’t tell her any of that. We just walked away and continued with our own planning.

After we were done in the kitchen cabinet section we walked around and looked at a few other items. By the time we were done it was after 12:00 noon and since we were tired and stressed out from the Lowe’s ordeal we did a bad bad thing: we went to Burger King for lunch. It’s been years since the last time we ate in one. We did not look for one of the psuedo- healthy meals that all fast food places offer these days; we went straight for the Whopper value meal.

When we got home, having a list of the various available cabinets and their sizes, we re-measured our kitchen and determined that not only would all the cabinets we want fit, we have several extra inches to fill. When this project is finally done I’m going to take the After photo to Lowe’s and show it off.

We have settled on a floor covering. It is not blue but I think I will like it even better. I often get a picture fixed in my mind of how I want something to be and it’s very hard to let go of that picture. I just need some time to form a new picture. Sometimes though, I hate that I am able to embrace the new picture. It feels like giving up. But anyway, we’re starting soon and there will be actual pictures to share and more adventure stories, though, I hope, nothing too adventure-filled.