Evolution of a kitchen

I found a couple photos of our kitchen before the house was even ours. Everything in the kitchen was pretty basic, but we lucked out that pretty much everything was there considering we bought a HUD home in 2003. This was our blank slate complete with world's cheapest appliances when we moved in.



I have no idea why we have a picture of this mess or what in the world we were doing with all of those boxes on our counters, but I'll post it anyway because it gives a pretty accurate picture of bleh wall color+red curtains+ugly counters+cheap counter tops+white appliances. We did add new light fixtures, a hanging pan rack, and a nice ceiling fan in our eating area.

I went through a series of other curtains before ending with these, which are still hanging now, but soon to change to colorful roman shades...


This is our lovely old table that we grew out of. Now it lives in our adjoining school room. Back then, I attempted to keep live plants in the kitchen. *snort*


Ah...mismatched appliances. We bought a black dish washer when our old white one broke. So here we had a stainless fridge and a white stove to go with it. Believe it or not, my least favorite thing about that stove wasn't even the color, or the fact that it didn't really heat to the proper temperature, but that it had one large and three tiny burners. With every mouth we had to feed it became more and more annoying.


Then our crummy old cupboards started to get the best of me. So I painted. For months. I took down the doors and painted a few each night. Then I flipped them. We lived without doors for a while. Then I did the frames, including the tops and bottoms. And I went bold. Then I painted the room in Harbor Blue by Behr. I added nice new brushed nickle hardware to match our decor (and to get rid of the ugly rusted brass hardware). Sorry for the poor picture quality.


The new colors made our counter top look extra awful, and pieces were cracking off everywhere. We found a little extra cash and hired someone on Craigslist to replace our counter top. And we were soon after gifted a beautiful black range and microwave. We opted not to get the built-in backsplash, so I read a DIY on tiling and off I went.

Finally things were coming together. But there was the issue of the hole in the island from Atticus sliding into it with his foot. Neither Andrew or I could figure out how to replace the wood easily, and since tiling went so well, I tiled it instead. I even got fancy and added glass tiles sporadically.


And then came mid-December of 2010. I was around 34 weeks pregnant and had the flu. And all of a sudden we had a hole in our kitchen ceiling, and water everywhere. To make a long story short, one thing lead to another, and our kitchen was torn out and completely replaced...finishing after my 40th week of pregnancy. I'll spare you the details on the mold treatment, living without a kitchen for over a month DURING the holiday season, and having people in and out of the house every day for well over a month even after my birthtub was prominently placed in our family room. But it paid off and the results are fantastic.

I love the tall, handmade cupboards more than I can express. The "artisan" who crafted them was sooooooo slow and unreliable, but it turns out dealing with him was great practice for waiting patiently for Dempsey to arrive after 42 weeks and 4 days of pregnancy.

They even replaced the backsplash (I thought my tiling job was better).


Now we just want to redo our tile floors with large slate tiles that match the basksplash. And I dream of a more family friendly pantry. But for now, here's a glimpse at the beginning of our owl collection and our history timeline.

And one of my favorite owls who remains perched on top of our fridge and holds important papers, like my jury summons for example.


Just today we turned our dining table in the opposite direction, but no pictures of that yet.

For those who are interested, the windows will soon have this as covering:


I'll update when they're ready!