My Kitchen, My Gym

After: Demolition complete

Before: Kitchen intact

Our kitchen is lovely. It’s white with little blue tiles and painted flowers that match darling ceramics I bought in Portugal years ago. It has served us well for 14 years, but we both agreed that it was time for something a bit more contemporary.

Those of you who have been reading since I started this blogette know that I love to get a workout in everyday activities. For example, I posted “My garden, my gym” about a month ago. Today my kitchen was my gym- and then some.

I don’t call “demolishing a kitchen” an everyday activity, but it was to be the activity du jour. Truth be known, it ate me up and spat me out (sorry, couldn’t resist).

I told my hubby that I wanted to be the first one to take a sledgehammer to the kitchen when we remodeled. So when I was summoned to do the ceremonious First Whack, I dutifully complied. I had figured that I would pose for a photo op, give it a couple of smacks and then head to the gym for my workout. However, after the first few minutes of beating poor, defenseless pieces of lumber senseless, I decided that this was pretty fun. So, I kept going.

Apparently I passed muster, and our contractor Juan upgraded me to a 50-pound sledgehammer. I literally had to stop and catch my breath after about 5-10 good hits. I would guess I slung that weight 200+ times. (Have you ever picked up a 50 pound dumbbell in the Big Boy section of the gym?! Talk about an anerobic workout.) Forty-five minutes later, the cabinets were history.

Next, one of the guys started chipping 4x4 tiles off the walls. Hey, I wanna do THAT too! Believing me to be insane, they gave me a huge chisel and hammer. Pop, Pop, Pop- off the whole tiles came, in such an extremely satisfying manner! If you ever find yourself in the position to remove small tiles from walls, by all means, jump on it sisters! Pure joy.

Then came the floor-tile removal. Totally different animal. Even with the king-daddy of sledge hammers, there were no satisfying pops, just a disproportionately small amount of incomplete fractures. When you tired of that, you switched to a banging with a simple hammer, and finally to awkward wedging and scraping with other tools. This took FOR.EVER! If you ever have the opportunity to remove 6x6 tiles from Wonderboard, run! don’t walk, away from that task.

Nearly three hours later, I was covered in a mixture of blood, wood, dry-wall, sweat and tile fragments. I always wondered what produced “that construction-worker smell” and today I had actually perfected it myself.

After the demo was finished, Juan told my hubby that in all his projects, a client has never helped with the grunge work. Translation: Your wife is mad as a hatter.

Muscles I didn’t know I owned are screaming at me right now. They are begging to know why I would torture them so. I apologized, but informed them that we have an Ikea kitchen to build tomorrow so they had better just pull up their socks and get a good night’s rest!

Photo-Just one of the boys- I'm the one with the mascara

Q: Have what is your favorite workout that doesn't involve a gym?