3.20.2006
"What were we thinking?" The Setup
What were we thinking, indeed. When Kristin and I first saw this house we were a little dismayed about the kitchen. Yeah, it was cute. Cute as a button on June Cleaver's waisted dresses. It was a 1950's kitchen meant for a 1950's housewife. You know, a woman who went grocery shopping every couple of days and did the dishes immediately after every meal? One whose family always ate at the same time at a perfectly set diningroom table? Yeah. Not us. My dad (a cabinet many) took one look at the kitchen (before we'd even bought the place) and said, "Well, the kitchen sucks." "Yeah," I replied, can we fix it." "Sure," he said.
So we bought it. And have lived with it, dreaming always of the day when it would be functional and we'd enjoy thowing dinner parties again.
We had plans drawn up 2 summers ago when we thought we'd finally get to it. But removing the asbestos popcorn from the ceiling and repainting the entire upstairs took more of our money and summer than we planned, so we didn't do it that year. Last year I was unemployed and Kristin was in the middle of a risky pregnancy, so we didn't get to it. So, this is our year!
We're getting most of our cabinets for free from my dad, and my aunt who's redoing her place right now is also donating some cabinets to the cause. We have ceramic tile from when we did our bathroom 3 years ago -- we bought extra at the time for the kitchen we knew we would do eventually. We've already bought our new appliances. All we've been waiting for is my dad to have time to help us.
I plan on updating every Monday with what we've accomplished over the weekend, starting (surprisingly to us) today.
But first, here are the before pictures. Most of them have notes (like the plans above) so click on them if you want more information.
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Trista -
this looks like a great project, my only question is that in your blueprint, the dishwasher appears to open in front of the sink....that could be a major pain in the arse.
my .02
Yeah, you're right. The dishwasher does open up right in front of the sink, and yeah, that's going to be a pain. But the kitchen is SO TINY that that's the only place to put a dishwasher at all. At least, that's the only place to put it if we want any counterspace. We had originally thought that we would put a range and oven in the bar and put the dishwasher between the sink and the fridge, but decided that there was no way we could afford either the separate range/oven OR a special one to be built in. Plus, the range in the bar option doesn't seem particularly safe for little fingers...
We're really hoping that working around the dishwasher door is less annoying than handwashing all our dishes. And we decided that no one who really likes to cook a whole lot will like our kitchen space no matter what we do to it...
Eh, it's just too, too small.