A Much Needed FACS Kitchen Renovation – From Drab to Fab
Outdated Family and Consumer Science kitchens seem to be a regular thing. A lot of money goes into a renovation. I was incredibly fortunate to have a full kitchen renovation with a recent district bond.
This FACS kitchen renovation is a prime example for taxpayers to see why passing bond issues to support your local school district are ever so important. This bond issue was a no tax increase, but even if it was, public education should be a priority in communities.
The before
The classroom before was original to the building. I don’t have a specific date, but somewhere in the 1960’s or 1970’s. The Brady Bunch kitchen was far superior to what was still in this kitchen. The counters were orange and the cabinets were brown.
There was likely splatters of food from years past because it wasn’t coming off with any amount of scrubbing.
No matter how strong a student was, some cabinet doors wouldn’t open.
There were holes in cabinets, creating a fun maze and playground for mice, no matter how clean you kept the room.
The floors would never come completely clean. The walls were drab, dingy, and dark, even if they were a vanilla color.
Old and in need of a renovation were far beyond needed.
The classroom renovation wish list
I started by creating an interior design unit project for students to design a new FACS kitchen. I had visions of taking over a weight room for one of the strength classes. It was a shell of a classroom and was never completely finished. It seemed like a great place to start over.
Students were tasked with designing 5-6 kitchens in the new space versus the four kitchens we had in the current classroom.
The current classroom had a design of 4 kitchens all side-by-side and tucked on one side of the classroom. I am not sure if students were that much smaller at the or if class sizes were smaller.
Apparently we manifested the idea enough because it was being included in the bond proposal as a renovation need for my building.
I had two top items on my wishlist- another kitchen and a pantry. The picture on the right where two fridges and a copy machine sat were turned into a 5th kitchen. It’s the purple kitchen since each is color-coded, which is why we named it Lebron Jams — for grape jam.
The 5th kitchen was a big ask. This could increase my class size from 28 to 30, a full class would go from having 7 in a kitchen group to 6.
I also wanted a pantry. I had food items on a table and it would be much easier to have the items tucked away.
I didn’t stop there and still threw out some other ideas I could live with if we were going to renovate- new floors, new cabinets and counters, new flooring, and
I kept spouting ideas once the bond was passed. I quickly learned the worst they can say is no. Let’s go with our wildest dreams.
The summer renovation
The plan was for the kitchen to be gutted within a day or two of school being out.
I was able to choose colors for the cabinets, counters, and flooring at some point in May. The plan was to have the flooring delivered around Memorial Day to make sure it was acclimated and ready to install the first week of June.
In order for this to happen, EVERY.SINGLE.THING. would need to be boxed on both the kitchen and classroom side before the last day of school. Many hands makes for light work, but it was still quite the task for a select group of students to inventory the items in each box.
Each box was numbered and the numbered box had a specific inventory list. It took over 50 boxes, a few strong 8th graders to put fragile items on top of the cabinets on the classroom side, and lots of glass items in any empty space possible within the classroom side cabinets.
It wasn’t long into June before we found out the kitchen cabinets and counter choices were no longer available. I made a quick trip to school to choose new colors. I wanted something timeless, but also would withstand spills, stains, and potentially 40+ years of use before another renovation.
That’s a lot of pressure! I chose a grayish navy for the cabinets, a speckled grayish navy for the counters and was pleasantly surprised a lighter color flooring would show less dirt. We opted for a vinyl plank flooring over tile.
There were conflicting ideas on when the kitchen would be finished, but I was told in June it would likely be finished right as the students would return to school.
This was one of those moments you have to remember you have no control, but you’re getting a huge renovation and to let it go.
August 1, the cabinets were framed, but that was it. Insert slight panic that in less than 20 days there would be students in the room, but lo and behold, it was finished by their first day on Monday, August 21.
The big reveal
The final renovations were beyond my wildest dreams. I could not have planned for a better kitchen than what I received.
It is beautiful. It is gorgeous. It is simple. It is timeless. It is impressive.
One of the best parts has been watching the faces of former students seeing the reveal.
There were a lot of updates.
A second entryway (from when it was two separate classrooms) was blocked off allowing teachers access to the restroom from that entryway in the hallway. This allowed for a 5th kitchen to be built.
A pantry was built with space for consumable items in one section and food in another.
New flooring was installed in both the kitchen and classroom side, creating a seamless transition between the two rooms. It also made the room look much larger with long planks of vinyl flooring rather than square tiles.
New cabinets and counters were installed around the entire kitchen side. A small wall was built between the two side-by-side kitchens. This allowed the two fridges and stoves to back up against each other rather than have two ranges side-by-side.
In my classroom, it’s called “Cross-kitchen” when a student crosses over into another kitchen, similar concept to cross-contamination and cross-contact, but humans, rather than bacteria or an allergen. This new design really helps any “cross-kitchen” previous compared to the previous design.
A fantastic idea to have the washer and dryer fit under a large counter in the laundry area was created. This is a much appreciated addition that I didn’t originally think of. Like most FACS classrooms, we wash A LOT of washcloths and dish towels during our cooking labs. Instead of having to move the ingredients off the table to fold laundry, we now have a large countertop area for laundry baskets- PLURAL- and space to fold laundry.
Each kitchen has a slight different design to accommodate where it is in the kitchen. The new additional kitchen is also ADA compliant.
Each kitchen now has a farmhouse sink, rather than a standard two-basin kitchen sink.
We kept the residential style kitchen because junior high FACS is an introductory course and it’s designed to introduce students to cooking at home.
Unpacking the boxes
Packing the boxes was no easy task and I decided the same for unpacking. I would have loved to have everything perfectly unpacked and labeled before students arrived, but that’s not feasible when the room was finished on a Friday afternoon and students started Monday morning.
When I explained to parents at our open house before school started that the kitchen was almost finished and that’s why there were still boxes, I only heard from one parent asking why I hadn’t spent my weekend getting the kitchen ready. #ignorethehaters
I tasked my FACS 2 students with unpacking boxes. They had FACS 1 last year so they knew how kitchens were organized. I placed sticky notes on cabinets for what I wanted to go where, but this also left some that were blank.
It took roughly 45ish students and two class periods to unpack all boxes and put things away. Everything wasn’t perfect. I let them help put Cricut vinyl labels on cabinets, but I accepted that they had ownership of the kitchen reno and I didn’t have to do everything by myself. It made for a win-win.
Unpacking a kitchen is an important life skill. It was actual quite helpful for me to keep my weekends free and keep everything in the classroom running smoothly.
Disclaimer: I do not know specifics for money spent, contractors used, etc. This post is simply to inspire other FACS teachers with a classroom renovation if it’s a plan in the works for your district. I was fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of an incredible district product and it happens to be my classroom.