Stuff I learned remodeling my kitchen

World-Herald reporter Roger Buddenberg and his wife embarked on a major home remodeling project back in March. He blogged about the ups and downs, delays and accomplishments at Omaha.com/living. Now that he has a new kitchen, he's sharing what he learned over the past 12 weeks.

The Beginning -- March 8

Gulp. We knew this day would come.

When my wife and I bought our Omaha home 14 years ago, a friend dubbed it "the Cleaver house." White two-story. Paned windows. Shady yard. The only thing missing, she said, is a white picket fence and a kid named Beaver.

More was missing, in fact. And what wasn't missing was wearing out. In short, it was a fixer-upper. We knew that. That's how we could afford it. We went in with eyes open.

The kitchen has always loomed like a wall cloud over the other fix-up projects. Painting rooms we could do, no problem. Ripping the mint-green disco shag off the wood floors that we could do. We built shelves, updated lighting, even overhauled a couple of bathrooms, stretching my DIY skills to the limit.

Still the kitchen loomed. If we're going to stay in the house, we said heck, even if we're going to ever sell the house then something has to be done with the kitchen. Something big. A makeover, not a comb-over.

Nibbling at its edges new Formica on the countertops, new light fixtures, a lick here, a promise there held us for a while. But nothing could disguise the cabinets, site-built in the 1960s and now falling apart in places. Nor the closed-off, galley-style layout, which might have suited June Dear when the Cleavers lived here but did not suit my Current Wife.

"In the kitchen of the future," she has been saying for roughly 14 years, "we will have double ovens. The kitchen of the future will have an island. And a gas cooktop. The kitchen of the future will have a wine rack." And so on.

The husband of the future mostly muttered to himself and tried not to think about it. But because I desperately love her, and because a gas cooktop does sound pretty cool, the day has come. The future is now. The kitchen commences. Both daughters have now made it through college even snagged juicy scholarships along the way, which makes it easier for Mr. and Mrs. Empty Nest to contemplate the remodel.

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Stuff I learned remodeling my kitchen