Monday, April 28, 2008

Dream Kitchen

I absolutely love our house. We moved in two years ago today and I could live here forever. I love the 1950s-ness of it. Love the creaky floors. Love the old tile in the bathrooms. Love the fireplace. Love the windows. Love the woodwork. I love us in this house.

I do not love the kitchen.

I have been dreaming up ideas about what to do to this kitchen since the first time I saw it. We've just decided to actually do it... greatly improving it's ability to be more family and hospitality friendly. Here are a few photos, so you can see the current kitchen. I even put the breakfast and lunch dishes (that were still on the counter mid-afternoon) in the dishwasher for you...

On Friday, the kitchen designer sawed a hole in the soffit.
Let the remodeling begin!

Think white cabinets. Thankfully, the dishwasher is new - we bought that when we moved in. The giant water filter (that we had to buy when we lived in Massachusetts and had brown water) to the right of the sink will be replaced with a fridge filter.

My sister's college microwave will be replaced,
and a new one will move to a shelf on this wall.


New fridge. Old fridge will move to the basement. (That's the basement door next to the range.) The range will move and a counter will be there with the microwave shelf above. And a pantry cabinet (glorious pantry!) will be to the left of the fridge - that wall will be gone. Currently, my pantry is in the basement.

Please excuse the crookedness of the next picture.

This is my wonderful 1968 GE range. She works amazingly well.
I'll miss you, old gal!

Imagine this wall gone. We will still have counter/bottom cabinets-drawers/range, but nothing on the top. Pendant lights. A raised bar on the other side with 3 bar stools for easy kid feeding. And a big, open dining room. My little helper stool... I need to find a place for that.

The floor is what I love least about this kitchen. Scratched, dull,
never looks clean brick-oleum. It will be replaced with hardwood to match the rest of the house.

Here's the other side of the wall that's getting knocked down. Good thing I never hung anything on the walls. : )

Oh, and that big brown ceiling fan is coming down too.

Hopefully, we will still have some money to replace the
hung-to-high brass chandelier.

This window (and white cabinetry) will hopefully brighten the now very dark kitchen. I just hung these drapes last week. What a huge improvement. The house came with dark brown wood blinds on all the windows. We are slowly replacing them with brighter options. This looks oh-so-much better.

I am so excited and thankful that we are doing this! So, for 4 weeks this summer I will be surviving without a working kitchen. I'm seeing lots of grilling and eating out in our future. Please invite us over for dinner. : )

4 comments:

  1. I'm so jealous! (Okay, not jealous *at all* about living 4 weeks without a kitchen, but...)

    Our kitchen isn't all that bad, but it certainly could use a few things. Like new flooring. Ugh. I'm with you there! I would *love* to get a new fridge and use our current one as an extra.

    We have terrible water, too. Desperately needed a filter system!!

    Congrats on your new kitchen!

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  2. I love your house too Jen! Most of all because who lives in it - but also because your creative self has done such great things to it too. Can't wait to see the new kitchen! Laurel

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  3. hi, i found you through heidi's blog, i look forward to seeing your kitchen come full circle!

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  4. Hi, Jen! I really like your blog. You have always been one of the coolest gals on the proverbial block...I can see nothing has changed!! We have some horrible brick-oleum in our kitchen, too. You're right, it never looks clean!!! But then again, you can never really tell if it's dirty or just...that's how it looks. Hee hee!

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