Jul 29 2020
1980s Dream Kitchen Update: End of Week 4
AHAHAHAugh…fucking kitchens.
I had to look at the calendar on my phone to see if I even have the weeks straight because it feels like this project has been going on as long as COVID’s been in town, but I guess that this is technically the end of the week 4 since we started this on July 2. I really thought we would be done! I guess it would help if Chooch and I could be trusted with tools and whatnot, because this has basically been Henry’s solo project.
(See the drawers in the background? Those are from the coffee table that we started redoing in June and then never finished because the kitchen happened.)
I had been dreading this part of the process because I was concerned that my lack of doing anything painterly or artisterly lately would hinder my ability (and patience). But it ended up being OK and didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would! I didn’t time myself, but maybe it took a total of 90 minutes?
I did part of it while the door was upright and then Henry took it off the hinges for me and that was moderately better except that I had a hunchback for a while afterward. Also, that Memphis design is programmed into my muscle memory for life now I think so if you need anything with a 1980s pattern scribbled upon it, I’m your girl.
Chooch wasn’t impressed. (Actually, he did walk past once and say, “That looks good” which was super alarming because he never cares about anything I do.)
Henry finally did some of the trim so now one side of the room actually looks finished!!
The door matches my coffee cart, lol. I couldn’t find a coffee canister that I liked so I made this one out of a basic canister from Target: just painted the top pink and got a vintage Alf figurine to use as the topper/lid pull/whatever. And my Korean ahjumma instant coffee sticks are perfectly contained in a Goonies cup.
My Baseball Card Vandals Phil Collins card is right at home here!
Meanwhile, Henry finally finished stripping the paint off all of the cabinets so hopefully this weekend we can start painting those so that another side of the stupid room will be kind of complete. And we went to Eide’s (a big music store/comic book place in Pittsburgh which used to be way cooler than it is now and it’s where I used to go in the late 90s/early 00s to get all of my Cure bootlegs!
) because I needed a couple more cassettes to be able to start working on the spice rack. I had snagged a lot of 30 tapes from the 80s on eBay but it turned out that I needed about 6 more. I’ll tell you what – vinyl may have made a comeback and I know it started to be trendy a few years ago for bands to release limited edition cassettes, but it’s been surprisingly difficult to find used tapes! We went to the Exchange and Henry went to a few Goodwills, to no avail. And honestly, Eide’s only had one small display that held maybe 75-100 used tapes, but IN THAT COLLECTION WAS, OMG…..
THE BACK TO THE BEACH SOUNDTRACK!!
Henry was the one who actually saw it and I yelled, HOLY FUCKING SHIT, although it was muffled because I was wearing my mask. They also had GLORIA LORING which was a no-brainer because she was on Days of Our Lives and that soap took up a huge chunk of my life in the 80s! IT’S THE ONE THAT HAS “FRIENDS AND LOVERS” ON IT.
Henry started building the spice rack on Sunday and now it’s Wednesday and still unfinished because that’s how Henry rolls. He starts a project and then doesn’t touch it for days (sometimes months, you can ask the Seoul Subway Wall Hanging that’s been chilling in the basement, untouched and unloved, since May, no big deal).
I even let him include one (1!!!) Ted Nugent tape in the rack, and now I’m about to take it back because he doesn’t deserve it!
(OMG Henry is actually finishing the spice rack as I write this so maybe I’ll be able to include it in the next round of updates.)
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