I’m drinking my last cup of coffee from the old kitchen. This afternoon, the old coffee maker will be packed away to be donated to Habitat for Humanity, and tomorrow morning, our contractor will come and start demolishing the old (well, current) kitchen. Bye-bye, old coffee maker. You’ve started many a mornin’. Bye-bye, old toaster. You’ve toasted many an English muffin.

The intention is that there won’t by anything on the new countertop. No coffee maker. No toaster. Not even any nicnacks. (Sorry, old ceramic friends.)

The schedule is for demo down to the studs starting tomorrow, electrical and plumbing on Friday, and fresh drywall and paint starting on Saturday. I’m flying to Virginia next Wednesday for the premiere of “Aurora Awakes,” leaving AEJ here to deal with the remodel alone for a few days. The cabinets will go in on May 11-12, and the countertop will be ordered then. The counter will take at least 10 days, during which time the kitchen will be pretty much in limbo. (We can’t install the range, sink, or dishwasher without the countertop.)

I don’t know what it’ll be like to be entirely without a kitchen for more than three weeks. We’re putting the refrigerator in the garage, but in order to get into the garage, we’ll have to go out the front door and around the house, because the only other way to the garage is through the kitchen, which we’ll have completely blocked off with plastic. We don’t cook much now, because we hate our current kitchen, but there’s a big difference between not cooking much and not having access to, say, a sink.  There’s no utility sink in the house, so the only sinks we’ll have are our slow-draining bathroom sinks. Fine for a glass of water, but not so okay for washing a plate.

If our last major remodel was any indication, this could get messy.

We’re using the same contractor for the kitchen who did the rest of the house before we moved in. We like him a lot, and his price was fair. Here’s a note for homeowners considering a kitchen remodel: Saying “kitchen” to a contractor is like saying “wedding” to a floral designer. Holy $hit. One of our contractor’s estimates came back over $25,000. Just FYI, that’s only labor. That doesn’t include cabinets, appliances, tile, tile installation, or flooring. This is the same guy who questioned our request to smooth every wall and ceiling (he wanted it to be textured, because that’s easier — WTF?), and suggested that our island was a bad idea. He, uh, didn’t get the job. (It didn’t help that his quote was significant multiple higher than our guy.)

So, in 24 hours, no more kitchen. Thank god the new Panera Bread just opened…