Our kitchen was originally designed to be for a bachelor or someone who lives alone and doesn't cook. At least that's how it seemed. It was cramped, dark and couldn't be occupied by two people at once. We knew this was going to be a big project, and after three and a half years of talking about it, we started Kitchen Project 2001.

Unfortunately for fans of before-and-after photos, the roll of before photos was ruined. So let me describe what the kitchen looked like: It was a small horseshoe shape with ugly gold linoleum, dark cabinets and countertops, old appliances, and a boxed fluorescent light.

I started the remodel by removing the fluorescent light box and putting in six canister lights, ironically, with compact fluorescent bulbs. Next, I started to tear out the soffit when I discovered that the electrical for much of the house ran through it. Rerouting the lines would have required an electrician. After the damage I had caused from the sledgehammer, I had to re-Sheetrock the soffit to make it look good again.

We couldn't do much for a month while we waited for our new window and patio doors. So we lived with half a demolished kitchen. During that wait, I scraped the cottage-cheese look off the ceilings of the kitchen and family room, sprayed them with a knockdown texture, and painted them. Dana's parents came over in early October, and the first thing we did was put in two patio doors and the kitchen window.