Plot Monkeys

And you think this blog is going to be about sex, don’t you? (Oh, no! The S-word…Plotmonkeys will be inundated with Spam in five minutes…thank you, spammers.)

No, I’m going to talk about the other activity that makes me oooh and aaah.

Eating. Sort of. Cooking, actually. Sort of. Future cooking…in my new kitchen.

Little by little, I’m finally starting to believe that my dreams of a new kitchen are going to come true. When we moved into our twenty-year-old house ten years ago (making the house about thirty now) I immediately ripped out the wallpaper in the kitchen. It was country…you remember, the mauvish pink and country blue with little people who were dressed like Laura Ingalls Wilder?

Cute for some people, death for me. (The woman who lived here before me also had pink and blue ribbons in the master bedroom…those went pretty darned quick, too.)

I immediately picked new wallpaper and spruced up the floors. The cabinets weren’t bad (just white formica) so they stayed as we totally redid the bathrooms, which had brown formica cabinets. Yikes! That experience was awful (I did tell the story about the man with the blowtorch and my two-year old daughter, right?) so once they were summarily fired from my house, I wasn’t so anxious to allow any other construction workers into my domain.

But now, the kitchen is starting to get on my last nerve.

First, I did not cover up where I ripped all the wallpaper. My husband was supposed to put up a new backsplash. He didn’t. So I stare at ripped drywall every day.

And the appliances are starting to break. My stove/double oven combo is so old, GE can’t fix it anymore. The burners are crooked, so in order to get a semi-even heat on my saute or fry pan, I have to scoot my toaster oven over and level the handle JUST SO. Oh, the funny stories I can tell you about my kitchen.

My soon to be former kitchen. Because this time, it really does look like we’re going to finally upgrade.

We’re knocking out a wall, making my galley kitchen into a big open space. We’re filling in a doorway to give more counterspace. But I’ve found that I really can’t get too excited about these things. They are practical matters…I’m more of an aesthetic girl. And functional is good, too.

So I need your advice.

The thing is, I don’t pay too much attention to other people’s kitchens when I go to their houses. Oftentimes, I like someone’s kitchen, but I’m not memorizing stuff. I did go to Lowes and saw this neato cool pot filler gadget that I absolutely must have…it’s a faucet mounted behind your cooktop so that you can fill your pasta pot right there on the stove! No heavy lifting! This, my friends, is utter brilliance.

So check–must have pot filler.

I also discovered the absolute coolest kitchen gadget in the universe while trolling the HGTV website. It’s a sink…but it’s also a DISHWASHER. Just set a few plates and cups in (like, say…breakfast dishes?) close the top, turn the sucker on and voila! 18 minutes later, you have clean dishes in your sink. You can even have a garbage disposal put in so the plates don’t have to be rinsed or scraped. A woman invented this puppy…of this I’m sure.

As for countertops…well, I’m torn. I wanted silestone until I discovered GLASS. I mean, look at this. Isn’t it the coolest thing ever? It’s probably wicked expensive, but I like to dream.

And then there’s flooring. I’m really torn about this. I don’t want tile. I hate dirty grout and I’m too lazy to clean grout anyway, so dirty grout is inevitable. Tile is out. I have Pergo and I hate it, so le’ts not go there. I want hardwood to match my formal dining/living area, but my husband is terrified of wood in the kitchen and it’s a high traffic area, which isn’t great for wood, either. Any suggestions? I’m leaning toward travertine. But bamboo looks very cool. And did you know manufactures are now actually using cork for floors? Supposedly VERY soft on the feet. Like carpet, but not. Who knows about this stuff?

Not me. That’s the problem. The learning curve for me right now is huge. I’m just wondering if any of you have any renovated kitchen advice…gadget advice…flooring advice? Anything! I’m pretty open and hugely curious about what other people know.

So…other than a personal chef, what must you have in your kitchen? Any advice for someone who is about to renovate? Other than buy a new house?