My husband and I have a small cape on the Northside of town. He found this buggy for sale and upon first visitation, I leaned over and whispered, "Are you mad at me?" As a first time homebuyer, the wallpaper and orange cabinets seemed to be too much to conquer. But, Rob was right: this house had potential. Over time we've been chipping away at the 1940s style kitchen, making something that fits us and our life.
Busy wallpaper and dark cabinets - eep!
The kitchen was small (!) and separated from the larger more formal dining room, which is typical of traditional capes. The kitchen even had a built-in ironing board and the original stove. This push button relic took ages to boil water and half the kitchen space.
Check out the space between the eyes!
For the plug-in appliances, like a percolator!
When we moved in the first thing we did was to pull down the wallpaper (Mom helped, she was such a trooper). But, underneath the wallpaper was more wallpaper and rough plaster.
'Alo, patches!
I'm not gonna lie. Our kitchen looked like this for a while, I mean a while. I preferred it to the wallpaper, but clearly something needed to be done. Then, like magic, we found the energy to do this....
But, we still had two more opponents!
The wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the house and the linoleum flooring.
Ehh...this was going to harder than we thought.
Make that WAY harder than we thought.
Heavy machinery was required.
The wall came down.
Holy smokes! The house felt twice as big!
But, the floors were still a little busted.
One of Rob's dearest friends re-did our hardwood floors.
Here we are enjoy the new flooring with a glass of wine.
We still have more to do, but the hard work has made our small kitchen fit our lifestyle...lots of cooking and entertaining. The greatest pay-off is the integration of the cooking space and the living room. We put our farmhouse dining table in the front of the house, and the couch in near the kitchen. This layout allows us to enjoy our company and cook at the same time. Life is good.
Amazing and brave, y'all! As a kitchen remodel survivor myself, I know how crazy it feels in the midst of everything, and how wonderful it feels to finish! I kind of adore that old stove- I've never seen one like it.
ReplyDeleteI'm all for busting down the walls! Made such a difference in our kitchen and our life, well done!
ReplyDeleteThanks ladies! I loved that stove too (in theory), but cooking on it was super hard. Next we are looking at more counters! Maybe next summer...
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