How our Spring Break College Tour turned into our Ikea Wet Bar

It's Spring Break! Tascha is a junior and that means spring break is all about college tours!

Three years ago when we moved back from Belgium, we decided to live in Maryland instead of Virginia. All our lives, we had planned on the kids attending one of Virginia's amazing instate universities, but choosing Maryland changed all that. Turns out Maryland doesn't have exactly the same choices. We have saved for in-state rates, not the $40-60,000 for out of state tuition. So far we are (I mean Tascha is) considering these schools for in-state Maryland rates...

University of Maryland - College Park

University of Maryland - Baltimore County

Towson University

But I wanted to show Tascha that there are plenty more schools that we can afford outside of Maryland. So Dan and I set to work using the net price calculators online and found a long list of schools that are affordable. Then I spent several days planning our spring break to visit these schools. Anyone who has planned a week long vacation with several destinations knows this is not a quick task. I made a complete itinerary, hotel reservations, dinner locations, printed out campus maps, picked out parking places near the tours, timed it all out perfectly for a 7 day tour of 13 southern universities and a day long break in Pigeon Forge to enjoy the Great Smoky Mountains.... Our spring break college tour!

We were set to leave Friday morning at 9 AM sharp. After school Thursday, Nick came home and informed us that he had to go to school for the half-day on Friday. Okay, not a big deal we could recover. But that night at dinner my plans came unraveled.

I'm pretty sure that the fault lies with me. I'll admit that the late start on Friday bothered me since we wouldn't be able to relax and enjoy UVA the way it deserves. So I presented another spring break option: a quick journey to Pennsylvania. I always present the family with options, and that, my friends, leads to problems. The opportunity to skip out on the weeklong college excursion and simply drive up Pennsylvania and visit a few schools and then head to Hershey Park was too tempting. The kids said no way to the Southern School Tour and hell yes to Hershey Park. Dan and I didn't handle the change of plans so well. We argued about the merits of our vacation and then the expense of the trip to visit the planned colleges for kids who claim to not want to go to those schools anyway. We settled on spending the money on ourselves and decided to finally finish the basement wet bar. If the kids didn't want to go to see schools that freed up the money we needed to complete our basement project.  

We had started finishing the basement last year.  So it was primarily done except for the blank wall where the kitchenette/wet bar belongs.  I had spent many hours dreaming about the plans and visiting Home Depot and Ikea to get assorted designs. Right from the start I wanted to keep the costs low.  I really wanted to stay under $3000. But my designs kept running about $5000.

My Pinterest board is filled with all sorts of amazing pins. Last June when a tornado destroyed our yard, all hopes of finishing the basement were put on the back burner and turned toward restoring our debris field into some semblance of a yard.  All the money we'd set aside for the basement towards the yard too.   We nonetheless continued to want to finish our wet bar and we knew that our plumbing permit was about to expire, and since the kids didn't want to go on my planned vacation, we figured that they could help us build some cabinets and learn how to install a kitchenette/wet bar.

So Friday morning departure plans came and went; we slept in. Why not, our vacations plans dashed, why not enjoy some rest. When I sleep, I really sleep. Finally around 2 o'clock we made it to IKEA; Nick came along to load the car. I had expected this to go quickly, since I already had the plans in Ikea's system. It did not. Ordering an IKEA kitchen is a very long process. Nick was tortured standing around waiting for the Ikea kitchen rep to finish up completing our plan and ordering our parts. Frankly, I'm not sure what was worse for him: the 4 hour wait or witnessing the 5 minute phone call I had with Tascha at home. Yes, I use speaker phone, I am that person. I hide away from people, but that doesn't seem to matter. I use speaker phone and that really bothers Nick.  Nick loaded the car and we got home around 7pm in time for our regular Friday homemade pizza night dinner.  The decision made, Spring Break was no longer about college tours; it was home improvement time.

Building the cabinets

Dinner at Sakura

The next few days were a blur of building, measuring, and slowly trying to figure it all out. Meals consisted of frozen foods and eating out because it was our vacation after all, and I was in home renovation mode.  It was an incredibly slow process. The kids built the cabinets; Dan and I installed them. We had a few moments of uncertainty and concern about the corner cabinet spacing and the stability of the peninsula. But with inspiration and Home Depot we managed to get it done.

Hiding from the work

 We did it. Here's the transformation so far.  This wall has been blank for a year because we have been anticipating this project.

In the end our Spring Break didn't end up at all as planned.

Day 1:  Charlottesville, VA               IKEA

Day 2:  Blacksburg, VA                    Install Upper Cabinets

Day 3:  Pigeon Forge , TN                Install Lower Cabinets 

Day 4:  Great Smoky Mountains      Return to IKEA

Day 5:  Columbia, SC                       Home Depot

Day 6:  Raleigh, NC                          Build Peninsula

Day 7:  Home

We opted for the Ikea quartz countertops and thankfully passed the inspection for a level installation. Now we wait another week for the countertop.  Then just some doors, plumbing, trim, caulking, paint, and decorations and it's done!  I can't wait to see how it comes together in the end.