Finished

Finally, the kitchen is finished. We had a last-minute holdup when we discovered that the bifold doors that enclose the pantry need a small bracket bolted to the floor. Apparently, the workmen who put in our new tile floor tore out the old ones and neglected to replace them when they finished. And my wife refused to let anyone see the kitchen until we put up the pantry doors. But of course, nothing is ever simple or easy.

It seems that bolting the hardware to the floor was going to be a problem, because you can’t use just any drill to cut a clean hole through porcelain ceramic tile. While the workmen were in our kitchen, I watched one of them drop a hammer from the top of a 6-foot ladder and it just bounced off the tile.

To drill these holes, I’d need something called a “Hammer Drill.” These drills oscillate the bit in and out as they spin, driving the bit through the tile without cracking it. I don’t own one. The workmen didn’t want to drive all the way to my house for a 5 minute job, so they talked me into installing the L-shaped brackets by connecting them to the doorframes only, letting them just rest on the floor. “Unless you got little kids ripping those doors open, they should hold just fine,” he told me.

So tonight I installed the brackets and mounted the doors. I took a bunch of pictures of the finished kitchen, which my wife has forbidden me to show you. That’s right, you can’t see it.

There are things I expect to see in what remains of my lifetime. I expect to see a cure for cancer. I expect revolutionary developments in electronics and computer technology. I expect astronomers to discover Earthlike planets in other solar systems. Perhaps those planets have a race of beings, divided into two genders, as we do here on Earth. However, it’s doubtful that in my lifetime, or in the lifetimes of those faraway alien beings, anyone will ever understand women.

I believe the logic here is that some of you know me and my wife personally. And you may come over to our house to visit sometime soon. And when you do, you will see our new kitchen. If I show you any pictures of the kitchen, it will somehow diminish the experience you will have when you see it in person.

In other words, you will be expected to utter “oohs” and “ahhs,” with genuine pleasure. And you will be expected to covet our kitchen with genuine greed and envy. Some of you may be inclined deliver harsh, accusing glares to your spouses, who have not shown any interest in transforming your current drab, outdated, awkward kitchens into the showcase kitchen we now have in our house. Life will be difficult for you for about a week following your visit.

And then, because I can’t help myself, I will start pointing out all of the flaws. The errors in design judgment. The needless expense. The installation mistakes. And my wife will deliver a harsh, accusing glare at me. But nothing like the look I will get if you walk in the door and say, “Oh, it looks just like the pictures Tim posted on his blog.” If that happens, life will be difficult for me for about a year following your visit.