But while I can't say I'm not happy with its fresh face and clean lines, its big stone sink and the way the vent hood's downlighting makes the stove alcove glow like a hearth, it's not quite what I'd call "mine." Not yet.
You pattern after awhile in an old kitchen. You know the precise flick of the wrist that clicks a door shut (without slamming it), how far to pull out a silverware drawer (without jarring it), where to grab the chef's knife (without looking).
So I should be patient, I guess. I'll learn the new light switches, parceled out over three walls. I'll know without hunting all over that the quiet beep means the freezer door is ajar. That the chef's knife - and its siblings - have moved under the microwave.
But there's emotional patterning that goes on, too. And that may take longer: We'd lived with our ramshackle kitchen for 20 years. Our granddaughter made her first egg sandwiches, standing on a stool at the old counter.
It was swaybacked and gapping at the wall; fake butcher-block Formica beyond the end of its natural life. So, good riddance. In one sense.
The new counters (and capacious farmhouse sink) are honed soapstone, sensuous to the touch. But their resume is skimpy; they're in need of personal, not just geologic, history.
Some history can be retro-fitted: My late aunt's memorial chalkboard hangs in an alcove of honor. The big crockery bowl from our North Carolina friends softens a bookshelf. A bouquet of worn wooden spoons mutes the gleam of the new toaster oven.
Still, I tiptoe around, a little afraid of the place. It's too new-car new. It requires humanizing nicks and spills, although I did explode the top off a tub of hot dressing I was shaking, christening the window screens and the spice shelves above the sink.
