House Tour: Kitchen (Before) and (Now)

Today’s installment of the house tour features the kitchen. The kitchen is even more in the “now” state and way farther from the “after” state than the living room. Basically, not a lot has been done in the kitchen except a few things that were absolutely necessary so that I wouldn’t cry every time I looked at my kitchen.

You see, I’m a cook. I’m a baker. I am a kitcheneer (yes, that’s a thing). So, funny that in my new home, my kitchen is my most hated space, right? Yeah, it’s hilarious, really. When we bought this house, the kitchen was actually one of the main selling points for us. Hello, potential. But, as it stands right now, it’s in bad, yucky shape.

Here are a few shots of our kitchen that I took the first time we walked through after having our offer accepted.

And just for fun, here’s a shot taken from the living room looking into the dining room and kitchen just a few weeks before we moved in. Yikes.

And here  is where’s it at today. Well, on Thursday at the tail end of Gwen’s morning nap after I spent a good thirty minutes cleaning, if I’m being entirely honest. It’s quite a lot messier today.     As you can see, not a whole lot has been done at this point. But, if you look carefully, you will see that some things have been done. Evan replaced the floor. This floor is possibly temporary. It may stay when we renovate, it may not. But regardless, it was necessary. The existing floor was very, very bad. The room was also painted. This included transformed the sea foam green ceiling (!!!!!) to a clean, crisp white. The walls were done the same color as is in the living room, dining room, n=nursery and master. We like to keep it simple. Or cheap. However you like to look at it.

We went close to four months living here without a dishwasher and when we finally purchased one, Evan added an extra few feet of counter top to accommodate it. Don’t you think the hunter green ties in so nicely with the rest of the look? (Sarcasm font!) This was just a piece of counter top he had laying around so for now, it will do. I must say, despite the huge eyesore of the mismatched counter top, I feel so much less frustrated and more settled since it was added. It may look horrible, but the extra few feet makes all the difference in the world. Before this piece of counter top, and the dishwasher, there were constant dishes piled on either side of the sink, and often on the cook top as well. There was not a natural or ideal place to serve as the work space. I felt like I was on top of myself all the time and so cluttered and cramped. If you remember our apartment, you’ll know that I’m used to a large, spacious kitchen with a lot of counter space. Getting use to a less functional space was tough.

The cabinets are in bad shape. Really bad shape. Many people have asked if we’d consider painting them for the time being to spruce it up. But honestly? All that work is just not worth it. There’s only so much covering up you can do, you know? The sink and above the sink window are super grunge, too. As well, the oven is tiny. It’s smaller than a standard oven so that has posed some difficulty for me, but I’m adjusting. Lastly, the cook top is horrific. It’s old and dirty and nasty. It’s way less dirty and nasty than when we got the house but again, only so much you can do. Only one burner works entirely well. Two work so-so. One doesn’t work at all. I don’t think I’ll be able to put up with it for too much longer. I was trying to hold off to see if I could just make do until we renovate, because I’m not sure whether or not I want to keep the separate oven/cook top kind of deal, but the idea of sticking with this piece of junk until I get a brand new kitchen is getting less and less wonderful as the days go by.

I have big dreams for this space. Big. I can see the potential. Every day I come up with new ideas of how to make this kitchen my own. That right there is another post all together. I know that once we scrape together enough pennies (ugh, pennies? More like dolla dolla bills, y’all) and my husband works his magic in this room, it will be my dream. My absolute dream. It is spacious. And open. It will be perfect.

Until then, I just keep truckin’. Or, erm, cookin’.