before kitchen

Introducing…our new old kitchen!  The two most stunning things I noticed about this kitchen were the tiny size and the beautiful light. I’ve seen my fair share of neglected kitchen designs, I’m pretty sure I’ve had these exact cabinets twice already in our past 13 homes so the cabinets and dated counters were no surprise. I can see past all of that.

You can change almost anything about a kitchen, but unless you want to knock down everything you can’t change the kind of natural light it gets and lucky for us, this one gets a lovely southern exposure with a view to the little pool and if we clear a few out a few trees, you can see to the pond.

bay window before

That’s the BEST part about the kitchen.

budget kitchen makeover

This refrigerator is tiny, and it still looks HUGE in the kitchen because there is no room for it.

budget kitchen makeover

before kitchen makeover

So I have two plans. One is keeping the footprint of the kitchen, getting knew appliances, sink, faucet, floors, painting cabs or replacing them and the counters inexpensively, getting a tiny smeg refrigerator (the one currently in the kitchen will go in the basement anyway for extra storage) or moving the space for the fridge into the hall right straight ahead so it’s not taking up room in the kitchen.

diy blog

The second plan is what I’m hoping to do and waiting on a quote for. I want this wall down. And that wall straight through the the kitchen to the right of the dog who always insists on being in every photo–I want that one down too. Did you notice the BlueTape on the floor in some of the photos? That’s where I’m hoping for a big island with the sink. We aren’t planning on doing a big bunch of uppers and we can do some of the work ourselves, especially the finishing things, but I’m still not sure that knocking out walls and reconfiguring is in our budget.

hallway

Here’s shot to the right of where the dog was standing. There’s a hall on the other side of the kitchen with two huge closets–one was once used for the laundry until they moved it out to the enclosed back porch– which I prefer. So this hall could be very usable space in the kitchen. And, neither wall is load bearing so we are good.

floor

My other problem is the floor. I don’t think I told you that we actually bought an old sawmill. I haven’t even gotten to show you the property yet–I have SO MUCH to tell you!  But, I think these wide plank pine floors were milled on site. And thy didn’t put them in the tiny kitchen.

back porch

But they did plank the walls in the porch with them so I’m thinking we’ll peel them off in the porch, re-plank the walls with boards so I can paint them without guilt that I’m painting something that can be our flooring and use these for our floors in the kitchen.  That’s the plan at least.

sink

The kitchen looks much better in far off photos than in real life. The stove is cracked and the bottom panel is peeling from it and this room is BEGGING me to tear it down. Begging.

We still haven’t figured out our country internet yet, I’d love any ideas you have, we started a discussion about it on facebook.  So my posting may be crazy for another week or so.