Blame it on Cuba!

How, you may wonder, can I blame a kitchen renovation on Cuba? The beautiful white beaches and turquoise waters, the spirited live music, the bright yellow coco taxis and the humble communism - how can they be to blame? Well, my good friend and running buddy Shannon has gone to Cuba with her family and friends, leaving me alone with my early morning thoughts, which I have learned can be quite dangerous.

We are about to finally complete our insulation project that we started a full year ago! But in order to do it correctly, we need full access to the crawl space under the kitchen, which means tearing up the floor. I have been waffling on this for months since I'm not sure that I want to do such a big job, which is partly to blame for the delay in the insulation project. I had different contractors in to see if they could insulate the crawl space without tearing up the floor. One company had me believing that they might be able to do it, so I cancelled my first guy, only to find out that while they might be able to do it, they also might NOT be able to do it. With no written guarantee, I decided to book the first guys again. Seeing an end in sight, I went for a run this morning and started to think about the floor. If we are ever going to put in a dishwasher and move the sink, now is the time to do it. And while we are at it, it would be good to get rid of those wood trimmed cabinets that scream 1980. And while we are at it, the yellow backsplash tiles have never been my favorite. I do love those glass mosaic tiles. And that pine look wainscotting - I don't really like it either. I'm mean, there's nothing that wrong with the kitchen. But now that the rest of the house is more tastefully decorated (no more murals, no more pink), the kitchen stands out as the one room that we've forgotten. As I pounded the pavement in my worn runners, I watched the sun rise over Christie Pits and the CN tower. If Shannon were here, what would she say? But no, she's relaxing on a warm beach with a cool Mojito while I stew in my own indecision. I made my way across the Annex to our turnaround point at Spadina when I had decided that if we're going to do the insulation, we may as well do it right. And while we're at it, let's spruce up the kitchen.

I made my way home, confident in my decision. Now I just had to convince Dan that it was all Castro's fault that we were going to spend our weekend tearing up the kitchen floor. Hopefully he'll remember what fun we had in Cuba last winter, and will see this reno as an equally fun adventure.