The Kitchen

In hopes to be better about blogging the process of our house, I decided that I would take rooms/areas one at a time, share what we've done so far and what we hope to do.  Hopefully that will keep you updated along the way.

I thought we would first start with the kitchen.  This is the room that probably has had the most done to it so far, and still has a fair amount to be done.

Let's start from the beginning:

All the wallpaper was ripped down.  How hideous was this wallpaper?    There was also some older wallpaper underneath in some places.  Rob's dad made it his mission to get rid of every last inch of wallpaper in here.

We moved the stove, which required some electric re-wiring, done by my father-in-law.  We took out the cabinet above it, and ripped out the backsplash thing on the wall, which left us with this:

We spackled over it and sanded down, instead of trying to get that adhesive off.  We figured that since the fridge was going there anyway, it wouldn't be too noticeable if the wall was a little rough.

We moved the fridge out of the middle of the room.   Look how small that space was where the fridge was!  I also added a chalkboard wall in the area between the kitchen and foyer, which you can kind of see in this picture.  And I painted the doors black.  I still have the basement door to paint.

Here's the island that Rob built using 2 cabinet pieces we found on the side of the road and butcher block from Ikea.  Besides being painted, the shelf needs to be finished on the top where we will keep all our cookbooks.  

This next pictures shows how we moved the stove over to the other corner by the window and the fridge where the stove was.  

We added the shelves from Ikea above the stove and Rob used a leaf from a table that was left at the house to build a small piece of countertop next tot he stove, which the Ikea cart fits under.  

We are planning to put a piece of pegboard above that (next to the shelves) for a couple pots.  

Here is the sink area that has had nothing done to, but I have big plans for. 

I'm hoping that we can keep the same sink but replace the countertop with butcherblock.  There is also more of that funny backsplash behind the sink, but I'm actually hoping we can keep that intact because  I have a plan for a backsplash, but we'll have to see how all that plays out.  

So, here's the long list of things left to do:

-Prime and paint all cabinets

-Add new hardware to all cabinets

-Add pegboard potrack

-Hang pantry cabinet between bathroom and back door (where fridge was)

-Replace counter top at sink

-Backsplash behind sink

-New ceiling light fixture

-New faucet

-New floor

The floor is a major undertaking that Rob and I are kind of dreading. We've been talking a lot about what to do because not only is the linoleum hideous, it's in terrible shape.  It's coming up in a lot of areas.  There is one more layer of linoleum underneath that, and then a layer of plywood.  The cheapest thing to do would be to rip up the two layers of linoleum put down a new vinyl floor, which I'm fine with...especially because I've always wanted a black and white checkerboard floor in the kitchen. 

source

Doing the floor while living here with 2 kids sounds very overwhelming, but we know that once we get all the other things done in the kitchen, that floor is going to be even more noticable and annoying.  

So, there is the kitchen update and plans.  I'm loving how things have been turning out and can't believe all that has been done in there, and pretty inexpensively so far.  We were fortunate that the appliances were fairly new and all work great.  Having to buy new appliances right now was not in our budget.  The funny thing is, in  a lot of ways, this kitchen has become more functional than our old one.  Probably because we are the ones that are planning it out, and being intentional with the set up and making things work.  

Thanks for sticking with me through this process.  Hopefully more updates to come soon!