Mars and Venus in the Kitchen

At the open house for our kids’ preschool last week, a fellow parent asked me why I had not posted on my blog all summer. The baseline polite response would have been to thank him for reading my blog, and briefly explain my virtual absence. And I think I did that, but I can’t quite recall. We were speaking across a loud room full of disoriented parents and hectic children. I personally was sitting in a miniature chair dishing cups of goldfish onto paper towel squares while simultaneously supervising the autonomous pouring of water from a communal pitcher into several small and nearly weightless Dixie cups. Whatever it was that I said to him, I’m sure it was not inaccurate. I still have a kid in preschool. I have a limited number of dedicated work hours in my daytime schedule each week. Within those time constraints, it took me all summer just to write a book review, write another article, edit some other work, and produce a radio show.

Had we been chatting in a less havocked and hurried environment, it’s possible that I might have given him an even more accurate answer. About how I could have worked more on my next blog at night. But how I instead engaged in a hodgepodge of other summertime activities that included but were not limited to taking tennis lessons, weeding my yard, tending my garden, making costumes for my kid’s summer musical debut, attending farm dinners and pre-Shakespeare picnics, and occasionally watching recorded episodes from the new seasons of Project Runway and Entourage, although only one of these is making it work, while the other is in a full-blown plot freefall.

As much as I like to chat, the truth is that I probably would not have provided him with a more detailed account of my rich after hours life, even if given the opportunity. There are two main reasons for this. First, I have a persistent, abiding fear of people thinking I’m lazy. I don’t mean that in a physical sense -- my broad Irish shoulders tend to recommend me in that area -- I mean it about intellectual work, and especially about writing. My fears are particularly acute when I’m talking about my productivity level with other writers or academics, who tend to view limitless and unceasing work as not just a necessity but also a badge of honor, particularly if they haven’t yet published their books or gotten tenure. I still can’t help feeling almost all the time like I should be doing academic work, and I’m not currently even working as an academic.

In my more serene moments, I can honestly say that I’m not lazy. I once had a therapist who alleged that people’s claim to laziness was just psychological subterfuge for other treatable pathologies, such as the fear of failure, or the avoidance of some other life choice. I lazily agreed with him. Yet I’m also aware that not everyone sees it that way. Someone might just think that I pursue too many interests outside of work. Or that I shouldn’t go to sleep so early if I have all that to fit in. And it’s true that if I needed 3 or 4 hours less sleep – like both my mother and my husband typically do – then I think I could write, roast some beets, and still put sharpie spots on a sweatshirt. If there’s one thing I have learned in my 41 years, though, it’s that making comparisons between your sleep habits and those of someone else – particularly if you’re the one who needs more sleep – is never an invitation to serenity.

The other reason I would have spared him the longer answer is that almost nobody cares if you’re remodeling your kitchen. Renovating your house, I’ve come to learn, is so stressful, expensive, and demanding of your time and attention that you really should explain the process in detail to someone if you want them to know you’re not lazy. But to a person who is not your sister, your mother, or one of a very few of your close friends who are in the habit of regularly returning your emails, it means absolutely nothing. And why should someone want to hear about how much time I’ve spent planning my kitchen remodel? As a process, it requires a singular combination of painstaking focus and monumental aspiration. As a topic of conversation, it manages to be at once both staggeringly boring and universally irrelevant. And I know this because it is reinforced to me time and time again by exhibit A, my own husband.

Mike is not a man who spends money frivolously. He is a generous person, but quite admirably, I think, somehow manages at the same time to be a meticulous and even ruthless financial planner. In the life of this kitchen remodel, I think he’s derived considerable comfort from knowing that he has veto power over several major line items in the budget. Yet if I come to present him with a specific material or design, he seems strangely avoidant, distracted, or detached. When I tell him we have to make a decision about one of these things, he frequently looks at me with a wearied, discomfited expression -- like you might see on the face of a growing teenager whose grandmother has just presented him with a healthy jicama salad for lunch.

Consider a conversation we had last week. Earlier that day, I had gone straight from preschool dropoff to prepare for a meeting with the kitchen designer, and then spent the almost three ensuing hours looking at cabinet styles, colors, and countertops with said kitchen designer. That night, as Mike sat across from me with the newspaper, I directed his attention to the three different cabinet doors and a small slab of stone that someone had blasted out of a mountain, and I had lugged home in my car to show him.

Me: So, I think this granite looks warmer than the first one we brought home, don’t you?

Mike: Yeah, I guess I can see that.

Me: It’s got some grey in it, but the dominant color is more like sand, so it coordinates with both the off-white and dark brown cabinets.

Mike: Oh yeah. Right.

(pregnant pause, lack of eye contact)

Me: Are you even listening to what I am saying?

Mike: Yup, Yes, I’m listening. Warm. Sand. Got it.

I suspect that the focused irrelevance of the kitchen remodel makes it an overwhelming topic for a lot of people, and maybe especially when they are not the primary cook in the house. I don’t really know. Luckily for me, though, I have a friend who bucks the trend. Although she devotes almost all of her time to her three kids, and lives several thousands miles away, my friend Kate has been generous enough to both listen to me talk about my kitchen, and spend some of her own time doing on-line research to help me. She says she enjoys it. But really she's a devoted and relentless problem solver, whether the issue be pillowcase fabric or childhood rashes. She is also an uncommonly skilled user of search engines. Suffice to say, I am grateful for her enthusiastic willingness to help. And since I haven’t posted that longer piece yet anyway, I thought I’d post an email that she fired off to me that same week. I think of it as homage to her. Mike said after I read it aloud to him that he thought it sounded rather like a monologue from a Judd Apatow movie -- so an homage, maybe, to whatever constellation of factors might describe the difference between Mars and Venus. At least insofar as it pertains to the renovation of kitchens.

OK! Kitchen, so exciting. Have you spent hours pouring over images, to test your commitment to white cabinetry? If you are worried about reproducing what you have now, what about a different countertop material. . .. concrete, silestone, paperstone, or soapstone? What about doing your granite honed? The materials I suggest are more neutral than granite, so I think perfect for open kitchen with as yet unpurchased adjacent decor and furniture. Polished granite is more statement, so if you are worried about neutrality, I might pick something less shiny. (Here, I reveal personal preference, and since you seem sure about granite, I think maybe you disregard above suggestions.) With that in mind, what about you go pick your granite first? Look at it this way: ask yourself, "What is the one thing I am most attached to in my kitchen vision?' If the answer to that is a certain style of white cabinetry--let that guide you. Let the mission cabinetry you love shape the rest -- just making shit up here. Or a cottagey look?

If, on the other hand, the white cabinetry was just a neutral you were picking, and the granite was your dream item, go shopping for your slab, or at least find a picture of your dream slab and move on from there. Maybe the color you love will impel you towards a painted cabinet that is more of a washed color, or even a neutral, warm maple, rather than white ….again, a made up example. As with anything, you need some constraints and parameters, but the way to work those is to let the parameters be the things you love.

I think backsplash tiles are whimsy--like you put together the kitchen and then go shopping and pick the tile that speaks to you and the palette. The blues and grays and one simple red sound beautiful! Why not go with that? If you have that as a guideline, and you spend an hour in the tile store, you will narrow it quickly. If you are truly "a difficult person," like me, you will find only one or two things in the tile store up to your exacting standards, anyway. Then, too, is price a factor? It was my guiding light. Hence the vast amount of subway tile in my house. Honestly, though, in my opinion, tile may well be your last step, although I can think of a case from my own remodel that proves the opposite. I found an arts and crafts repro tile I ADORED, and planned the whole downstairs bathroom around it. If tile is your dream vision, what kind? Tumbled italian? A spanish look? Malibu? Searching for these things first will then let the other pieces fall into place.

But really, have you spent hours with magazines? I think it's worth it to make a folder with images that you love, or a posterboard with all your dream aspects represented.

CALL ME, We talk it out!

xo

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