Great Expectations

We’re finally getting our kitchen installed. We’ve been living in this house five years now. Or six. Ten? I dunno. I’ve lost track. It’s been a long time though. It was with immense joy — plus a large sledgehammer — that I tore out the old temporary kitchen (temporary for five years!) to prepare for the new kitchen going in.

Originally, we were going to build the kitchen ourselves with refurbished cabinets from wherever. The thought was to scour old farmhouses or something and strip the old wood down and stain it all into a consistent, cohesive on sais quoi. But a) I ain’t getting any younger, and b) time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ … and Wendy and I both just wanted the thing done, and in, and functional as quickly as possible.

So we traveled to Lowes home improvement and planned the thing all out. What kind of cabinets we wanted. What features. The kind of wood. Since we have hickory trees literally all over our ten acres, we went with rustic hickory. Also, the name of our little doomsday post-apocalyptic land bunker is Hickory Homestead, so why not. (For those of you on Facebook, Wendy maintains a page for all things related to this long and arduous and adventurous process, aptly named Hickory Homestead.)

It took forever to make all the decisions and get the thing planned out. When all the plans were finalized, we placed the order. Three to four weeks for the cabinets to come in. Another week to schedule the installation. Then the installation. After the installation, another week or so to schedule someone to come out and measure for the countertops. Then finally three to four weeks after the measurements to actually get the countertops. Then a week after that to schedule the countertop installation. Yes, all of that is accompanied by a large eye-roll on my end. And for those of you at home keeping track on fingers and toes, that adds up to roughly twelve weeks (three freaking months!) from the time we ordered to the time everything should be installed and final.

According to Lowes, the actual cabinet installation should take — and I’m quoting this verbatim from what they told us to our faces — two to three days. I expected a crew of at least three or four people to show up on the first day. I expected they would work from nine to five. I expected it would take them the two or three days that Lowes promised.

We are now closing in on the end of week number two. Ten days. And it’s not been a whole crew of people. It’s been one guy. By himself. The whole time.

I don’t blame the installer, Robert. He’s been great. He’s got a cool British accent, which just sort of lends that air of dignified professionalism to his work. He’s thorough. He does incredible work. But let’s get real here, he’s only one guy. And there’s only so much work he can get done in a day. And he’s had to work around my, errr, “lack” of knowledge and professionalism with this type of work. I’m not a craftsman, not by any stretch of the imagination. I can do stuff: basic wiring and plumbing and construction. But there have definitely been goofs on my part. We’ve had to move a couple of outlets because I put them in the wrong place. And it’s possible I also forgot to install a switch for the garbage disposal (oops) which I had to add in after the fact.

Long story short, Robert the installer has been terrific and patient and kind and professional. The problem, really, was the unrealistic expectation that Lowes threw at us. “Two to three days for the installation,” was one hundred and eighty-four percent not even close to being in the ballpark of accuracy. They should have known better. They should have been more realistic with their timeline.

I’ll be the first to admit that, when it comes to setting unrealistic expectations with things I want to get done, with things that matter to me, I’m not any better than Lowes. I get all excited about doing The Thing, and reality goes right out the window.

“Let’s start writing stories.”

“No! Let’s write a whole series of novels.”

“No! Let’s quit our day job and have a whole writing career.”

“No! Let’s win awards and go on speaking tours and sit on con panels.”

“No! Let’s have adoring fans all over the world.”

Visions of Neil Gaiman and David Sedaris and JK Rowling and Stephanie Meyer and Stephen King and John Scalzi and Chuck Wendig … I can be a rockstar like them too, you know?

Yeah. I maybe might tend to get a little carried away.

Reality is quite different. My life isn’t anything like any of those other folks. I’m coming to writing late in life. I didn’t even start until well into my forties. I have a full-time job outside of writing that pays the bills and keeps a roof over our heads and lets us go to the doctor when we get sick. We are building our own house, which takes not-an-inconsequential amount of time as it turns out. I’m likely never going to have the kind of writing career I once envisioned. Or if I do, it’s going to take decades rather than years.

Am I okay with this? I dunno. I’m still trying to bring my head down out of the clouds and ground myself. I’m disappointed about it for sure. Maybe even a little sad. It never feels good when you have to shoot an arrow through your high-flying helium balloon. It’s important to have goals. It’s important to have dreams. It’s important to have a vision of what you want to accomplish. I still have all those things, especially when it comes to my writing. But I also think I’ve set myself up for a lot of disappointment too in the past because my goals and dreams weren’t weighed and measured against the realities of life and my particular situation.

So, I’m still thinking and dreaming and working and weighing my options. One day we’ll see where it all leads. Until then, enjoy some kitchen remodeling pics.