Your Dream Kitchen

You’ve had a lot of dreams in your day. At some point, you probably wanted to be an astronaut. You wished for superpowers. You daydreamed about meeting a unicorn, finding a portal to Narnia, or your stuffed animals coming to life.

As you grew older, your dreams became more sophisticated but not much more practical. You dreamed of winning a million dollars. You wanted a wedding on the beach that, realistically, would have cost about four million dollars. You wanted to become famous. You dreamed up your future home, every room, every detail.

Then real life set in, and your dreams got chucked out the window. You didn’t win a million dollars–you got a job instead. You may or may not have gotten married, but your wedding wasn’t a four-million-dollar beach wedding. You still treasure your special day, (but dang–would it have been cooler the other way.) You did not become famous, except maybe to your kids. The one dream you haven’t quite traded in, though… is that perfect house.

You realized a long time ago that building a house from the ground up would never be in your budget. You bought a house. You like the house. But it’s still not the most magical place you can imagine. Still, you tell yourself that’s just how life goes. We don’t get to close our eyes, imagine and place, and then–presto! Live there. All the same, you’ve been tinkering with the idea of remodeling a little. You have the money. You’d like to dream again. This time an adult dream, but no less satisfying.  

Your room of choice? The kitchen. After bathrooms, it’s the most commonly remodeled room in a home, and for good reason. The kitchen is the heart of your house. It’s where cocoa is stirred in the lazy, blue-dawn hush of Christmas break. It’s where cookies are made and warm golden light spills over a turkey dinner. It’s where your family cooks, eats and gathers. A kitchen should draw everyone into it–coloring preschoolers, your spouse scanning news articles on the phone, your teenagers doing their homework. It should be a magnet of life and warmth.

Now, with the internet, designing your kitchen is almost like a daydream. You peruse beautiful images. You select some. You skim through the fine details and select those, too. In the warmth of your own chair, you can fill your new kitchen. A luxurious browse through Dacor and you’ll find exquisite appliances. The nooks and crannies of your kitchen can be filled with daydream-luxuries as well; a simple internet browser and you can stock your cupboards with fine liquor–whether your live in Woodbridge, NJ or Tuscaloosa, AL or anywhere in between.  

There’s no reason to give up on this dream. Think of dreams as attempts. In life, we make many attempts. They don’t all work out. Many of them fail. That’s okay–it’s how attempts work. That nature of failure doesn’t stop us from trying. Dreams are the same way. Just because some of them didn’t work out, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t see others to the very end. In this case, a perfect kitchen.