It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

The crew from Home Depot filtered in and out over the course of the day on Patriot's Day to begin phase 1 of the "installation," which involved making A LOT of holes in our walls and taking every formerly functional thing out of the kitchen (sink, dishwasher, stove).  It's totally fine and I totally expected this, but ohmagah the kitchen is such a mess.  Some close-ups for your viewing pleasure:

The sink used to be in this corner.  Those are "true 2x4s" in the wall, which apparently you haven't been able to buy for a very long while.  Also notice the total lack of insulation.  They moved the garbage disposal switch to the right of the sink, which will be much more useful than where it was before, halfway across the room.  

Close-up of the "true 2x4s."  We were told to be impressed, so we are.  

You can't tell from this photo, but you can see through the floor into the basement. 

Huzzah for structurally sound living spaces! 

This is the wall where the stove goes.  Peeling off one of the many layers of wallboard revealed...

More yellow paint (a different color this time), green paint, AND fake painted bricks!  

Fancy people call it trompe l'oeil, but around here, we call it crappy painting skills.  

Then came the part where the gas line was capped off (lower right corner) and the stove's electrical supply was gone (many exposed wires hanging out of the wall) and the stove was in the middle of the floor and I got a wee bit panicky about how the heck we are going to eat this week.  Hotplate?  New raw food diet?  Take-out?

Here is the "finished product" for the day -

Those shiny new blue boxes mean the electrical system will now be up to code in the kitchen.  The wires hanging out of the wall are for under-cabinet lighting, which will be hard-wired and not plugged into the wall and snaking through the cabinets like our previous (ghetto fabulous) under-cabinet lighting.

Nope, the stove is still not connected.  But it is in the right location, which is encouraging.

But look what else they did!  They took our beautiful new cabinets out of the boxes and set the up in the dining room.  They're SO NICE.

It was super hot all day, but not even open windows and plenty of gatorade could stem the intense sweaty man smell that now permeates the house.  Tomorrow the plaster guy is coming to "help me out" (Translation: They saw through our naive claims that we could repair the holes in the wall and are going to fix it for us so we don't screw everything up).

We are going to cap off a day full of healthy choices and go eat ice cream for dinner.  I'll be back tomorrow with an update!