Before painting all the cabinet doors and drawer fronts from the kitchen, they need to be degreased and deglossed. This dreaded process takes about 10 minutes for each panel and took me the better part of the day for all 44. I split it up into three shifts and did a little shopping and food preparation (microwaving a frozen dinner) in between. I am very glad to have this task behind me.

Jeanine made it to Key West today where she rented a bike and toured the city. Next, she heads back to the mainland where she will be staying with close friends in Del Ray Beach. I had a productive day working on the kitchen getting all the base cabinetry ready for painting. Tomorrow I hope to get started on priming all the doors and drawer fronts.

Jeanine is enjoying her time in the Florida keys. Today she shared this photo of the pelicans which seem to have taken over this dock. I worked rather late at the office and was so exhausted when I got home, I decided to give myself a break from the kitchen make-over and just relaxed before turning in early.

In order to save money, the builders of our house did not put hardwood flooring under our kitchen cabinets. The result is that they sit 3/4″ lower than normal, a big problem for proper fit of our dishwasher and trash compactor. Making matters worse, the floor in the kitchen is not level. Its height changes by 7/8″ over the counter’s 21-foot run. To correct both of these problems, I had to remove all the base cabinets, install a proper height base and reinstall them.

This evening the focus of our kitchen make-over project was the backsplash. It is composed of tiny tiles that had to be removed one at a time. I used a hammer to coax them out without hitting them so hard as to cause damage to the underlying wall. I completed the task by midnight and got a great upper body workout for my trouble.

Maya shared this very lovely photo from the Netherlands. For the moment her study abroad program has not been canceled although that seems to be the trend in other European countries. We hope her semester abroad experience will not be diminished by the coronavirus pandemic. She had to cancel her plans to visit Italy but we are hoping she may find her way to Belgium or Sweeden where we have friends and relatives.

This morning I drove Jeanine to Logan Airport at 4:30 am for her flight to Florida where she will be spending the next two weeks kicking off her three-month sabbatical decompression tour. While chatting on the ride into Boston it occurred to me that I should give her my National Parks annual pass. After picking up her rental car she made a beeline to the Everglades and shared her close encounters with the local wildlife before continuing on to the Florida Keys. I believe her first destination is Islamorada.

Day 1 of our kitchen makeover. I removed all cabinet doors, drawer fronts, and associated hardware. I took a still photo after each door was removed and combined the sequence into a time-lapse video. I stopped after the first tier because it was taking too long. As it stands, all 44 doors and drawer fronts have been removed. By far the most tedious part of the job comes next; cleaning and sanding. I will try to do this in small batches over many days.

With Jeanine set to begin her sabbatical travel next week, I am getting ready for the kitchen makeover I will be doing while she is away. We renovated the kitchen when we moved in over 16 years ago and kitchen fashion has changed since then. In order to ready the house for sale, I will be painting much of the existing cabinetry a very light gray. In the coming weeks, you will no doubt hear about other elements of the project. Today I constructed a painting booth within my workshop. I will be using an HVLP sprayer to make quick work of the 44 doors and drawer fronts I need to paint. Doing so requires a dust-free area and some method of containing the overspray. I used 2mm polyethylene to fashion walls and leftover house wrap for the floors of my make-shift 8’x18′ paint booth. Access is by way of a flap door at the front and ventilation will be through the sliding patio doors at the back.

I apologize for the number of food shots posted this week but between work and helping Jeanine with photography for her book, I have had little time for anything else. I took this photo earlier in the week and am now wondering what came of the subject which I would very much like to sample.

Food photography for Jeanine’s book continued this evening. This was the most difficult shot yet; not because of the lighting or composition but rather the anticipation of the meal.

More food photography for Jeanine’s book this evening after a long day at work. The camera work took no more than a few minutes. Setting up the shot, however, took a very long time. I wish my mother was here. She has an eye for still life composition that neither Jeanine or I can come close to. Jeanine’s self-imposed deadline has her cranking away down the home stretch.

As has been the case in the last two presidential primary elections, Jeanine and I voted for different candidates. Even so, we are very much aligned on what we want in a president and I have no doubt we will be voting for the same person in November. We were a little disappointed that only one of our children took advantage of this opportunity to vote. I am confident that this situation will be rectified in the national election.

One of Jeanine’s first goals while on sabbatical is to complete her memoir cookbook. To that end, she has asked me to help out with the food photography which I am more than happy to do. The job pays extremely well; all the cookies you can eat!

This evening we dined with the boys at the French restaurant, Colettes to celebrate the start of Jeanine’s sabbatical. It was great to catch up with them and to discuss our respective thoughts on candidates for next week’s primary election in Massachusetts. Kyle reported on his new job and the difficulty in saying goodbye to his current colleagues. Nicolai who has not been all that thrilled with his master’s degree coursework at Lesley is now in a class with a teacher he admires and it sounds like he is having fun. We missed not sharing the meal with Maya, especially knowing that she is suffering from the flu which she contracted from her roommate.