Test Scoop, New Development, September 2011
I’ve been remodeling our kitchen for the past several months, weekends and every spare moment earmarked for design, build and general obsessing. The kitchen is the focal point in our house, both in daily use and the full abstraction of initial and ongoing impressions, so it has been a fairly agonized project in a self-inflicted sort of way. Going through some midlife issues of late so I placed some impractical goals on the project- it needs to instill a quiet reaffirming cheer at Monday 4 am when I get up to make coffee, it needs that naturally automatic fingertip memory of where I want to reach for stuff before I even know I need it, it needs both a visual and spatial palette of spring brunch and autumn harvest; it needs to help me quit smoking.
I grew up working in kitchens and I also used to be a cabinet/ furniture maker and trim guy (before the economy tanked), so the project also was a focal point of many lapsing interests. Layout and cabinet design were fun and easy but I was a little surprised how much I tortured myself over the peripheral decisions- hardware, counter tops, flooring, appliances. Mostly style-based and superficial agonies, contingent on available cash vs. how much substandard crap I could actually stomach. But doing all the work myself did free up money for a few indulgences.
I’m not sure about the return on the project in the long run, which always seems to be contingent on factors I never see coming. Considering the CBAs or SIRs that I agonize over on my current job, it’s been pretty cool to keep these indulgences utterly relative to momentary and even superficial impulses, which has provided a much needed break from work.
