Kitchen

Almost 5 years ago, my husband and I moved into this 1970's bungalow house.  Moving from a condo to a detached home located on an acreage, we were excited!  I knew we had taken on a challenge but I knew we could make this house our home.  At that time, we took on some pretty major facelifts to the inside of our new home.  Gone was the old smelly, dirty carpet and we replaced it with new laminate flooring.  The whole upstairs got a new coat of paint.  We didn't stop there...

 

The kitchen received most of our attention.  The picture above was a photo of how the kitchen looked before we bought the house (sorry for the poor photo quality, it is the only pic I have).  Once we moved in, the one thing I wanted to change above all else was the cabinets.  I've never liked oak very much, and the stain that was used on the cabinets made them look orange in color.  The peach paint color on the kitchen walls seemed to intensify the already orange looking cabinets. 

The cabinets were outdated and closed off the kitchen from the dining room.  As soon as you walked into the kitchen from the front entrance you were running into a cupboard that split up the two rooms.  The floor was a mix of stained hardwood flooring in the kitchen and cracked tile in the dining room.  

The attached dining room felt small as the kitchen counter and cabinets seemed to take over the room.

I'm lucky to have a husband who has very similar taste to mine and who is not afraid to take on a remodel.  And remodel we did...

In the end, we designed a kitchen that flows and fits our needs.  The fridge was moved. New cupboards, counter top, and back-splash.   

Our dining room now has space and we can easily expand the kitchen table to seat eight and still have room to walk around comfortably. 

We added a pantry to the other side of the patio door to balance the cabinets around the fridge.  Now an area that was just wasted space on the other side of the patio door stores my baking supplies.  

Just to recap, here is the before and after!  

Before

After

Our kitchen is now more open, functional and pretty!  My kitchen is forever a work in progress, but I think that is half the fun!  Since the kitchen and dining room is where our family spends most of our time, I want to have the space as efficient as possible.

I am forever rearranging and changing around the items sitting on my kitchen counter.  I move things around to find what will give me the most usable cupboard space and what makes sense eg. cooking utensils close to stove.  I'm trying to make the space look as pleasing to the eye as possible and yet make it functional. 

Comment and share your kitchen ideas and upgrades.  Up next... my ideas for kitchen counter organization.  Stay tuned!

As Always,
Sandra