When we bought this house, I walked through the front entry into the worn-out yet elegant living room. I oohed and aaahed at the beautiful paned windows and built-in bookcases and gorgeous carved woodwork and paneled mantel. Next, I entered the dining room, which had a salmon and green color scheme problem, but still I was enchanted. I was so excited to see what the kitchen would be--and was instantly crushed. First of all, it was beige. It was worse than beige--I have aptly renamed the color "Caramel Desert Sand Poo Paint". The room also looked really small, especially after leaving the huge living and dining rooms. The cupboards were unlike anything I have ever seen, and not in a good way. I will show you the before picture, but it looks so much better in the picture than in real life, you will think I complain about nothing. Here it is in all its former glory:
Let's be nice and talk about the good things first. The big windows look out on the beautiful yard and are a wonderful focal point. That is it for the good, I'm afraid. The cupboards were plywood faced with linoleum. Someone went to a lot of work to construct these and I wonder why not use real wood? I think the counter tops were Corian, but isn't that supposed to be a no-stain wonder product? It was quite stained and scratched and sad looking.
What it that little door under the upper cabinets, you ask? It was actually promoted as a selling feature of the house, "a unique recycling bin". Open the door and you find a hole cut in the wall that leads into the garden shed. There was a garbage bag rubber-banded over the hole to drop the recycling into. It smelled. It was a bad idea. It lives no more.
We lived with the ugly kitchen for six months. I must digress and tell you that I have long dreamed of having an unfitted kitchen comprised entirely of mismatched antique cupboards. My husband, who usually trusts me, said no--he thought it would look weird and not good enough for the house. Thus, I planned a normal kitchen remodel with new cabinets and quartz counter tops. If we kept the bad footprint layout of the original cabinets and did all the work ourselves, the cost was over $35,000. That price tag did not even include appliances. I resigned myself to living with ugly kitchen. I thought, "a little paint, a few flowers, some throw pillows..." (how much do I love Igor in Young Frankenstein?). Fate intervened when we found a large cupboard in an antique shop and I mentioned that it was just what I had always wanted in the kitchen. Once he saw the cupboard, my husband started warming to my original antique kitchen plan. When we found all the cupboards we needed for about $6,000 total, he was even more enthusiastic. Now that it has all come together, he finally admits I was right and he loves that we have a kitchen like no one else.
Now we go back in time to the destruction phase. This lasted much longer than the television shows with contractors tell you. It is much dirtier than you can ever imagine. Dust encases everything you own even in far off rooms with doors closed. It sucks. Yet, this is the fourth time my husband and I have renovated a kitchen. We are clearly mad. This photo was taken in October 2015. It is now July 2016 and there are still projects to finish in this kitchen, but scroll on and you will see some progress!
and this is how the back yard looked for a week:
The kitchen is now my blue heaven. I think I can safely say it is one of a kind. The cupboards were all in various states of disrepair when we found them. We worked like the proverbial dogs to fix them and make them gorgeous. I admit that in the beginning, I only had a vague idea of what we would do with everything, but it became the kitchen I have always wanted.
First, I must tell you that the sink base is not done--it will be painted all white and the brass pulls will be replaced with cast iron. We also need to put a shelf of some sort next to the sink--someday. The sink, by the way is a 1920s salvage piece, I plan to write a before and after about the sink and all of the cupboards later.
The floor is old fashioned 1950s style linoleum squares, they call it commercial tile now. I didn't even know they made it still and was so excited when we found it at our small town lumber yard.
The low cupboard is an old seed cupboard from a store and has made quite the transformation--it was a mess when I first met it. The lace etched window was one of those serendipitous finds, it fits perfectly in the big window that looked a bit too empty before.
This big two piece hutch started it all and it is the showpiece of the kitchen now.
This old Hoosier cupboard is a married piece--the base and top did not originally go together, but look like they were made for each other.
Here is the other side of the room. Remember when I said I originally thought the room was small? Well, it turns out when you take away the peninsula and the weird diagonal refrigerator cubby, the room is huge! I love the train station clock we installed and the gorgeous Victorian brass light fixture (we replaced a pink 1930s fixture there that looked like it belonged in a bedroom). The big paned window was originally the end of the house. It looks into the dining room, which is the next room to be overhauled...I am so looking forward to saying good-bye to the salmon paint in there and bringing this old house a little closer to being a finished home.
