New Kitchen

Welcome to our new kitchen! After 6 months of hard work, washing dishes in the basement and cooking on a hot-plate, it is finished.

Last week I was off for Spring Break and we worked day and night painting, cleaning, unpacking boxes, moving things and finishing up all of the final details.

Here are the pictures. I am no professional photographer, so some of these pics are a little dark. Also, I apologize in advance, but this will be a long post :)

BEFORE
This is what the kitchen looked like when we came to see the house prior to buying it.
Metal cabinets with a wood-grain overlay, wall paper, heavy draperies and brown shag carpet!

AFTER
All fresh, clean, new and white!

The left-side before.

The left-side after.

Vintage locker baskets sit on top of the cabinets.

My collection of vintage Pyrex. I will really be using these - a la Rachel Ray.

Going Green - Vintage dish towels will replace paper towels.

The right-side before.
There was a window on this wall. We bricked it in.

The Right-side after.

With the window gone we have more storage and counterspace.

Wood shelves built by Mark.
After years of collecting cake plates and vintage glassware, I can now display these beloved treasures on the shelves to use and enjoy.

I don't want to have very much sitting on the counters.

These vintage canisters are the exception.

After cooking in such a tiny space for so long, I am really enjoying having room to work.

Undermount deep-bowl Stainless Steel sink. Didn't Mark do a great job with the Corian?
Our old kitchen didn't have a garbage disposal. Now we do!

A new, smaller refrigerator. The older refrigerator has been put in the basement to store soda and other groceries that don't fit in this European-sized fridge. We decided to go with this small refrigerator for now because it doesn't take up much space in the room.

A school house light.

The milk glass globe was purched for $1 at Construction Junction.

The cast-iron mount was purchased on ebay.

The ceiling was covered in v-board wood and painted white for a cottage look.

Knobs.

After much thought, we chose these drawer pulls and knobs. We found them on the internet.

We had previously purchased an original (from the 1800's) version of this drawer pull a few years back from an estate auction. When the kitchen cabinets came we looked at several different styles of pulls but didn't love any of them. Remembering that we had some old hardware in the basement, we looked at what we had. Liking the look of this pull, we wished that we could find something similar to it. Lo and behold, after searching around online Mark found someone on ebay selling exact reproductions of that original pull.

A "spice rack" sits next to the stove. Miniature drawer pulls, that match the larger ones, are on these drawers. I am using this to store kitchen gadgets. 

These knobs match the pulls. They have a raised floral design. They were purchased from a different company.

Some people questioned our decision to use open shelving instead of door-front cabinets. This pantry makes the open-shelf concept livable. It holds a lot of dry goods, paper products and groceries. Oh, by the way these cabinets are Martha Stewart brand - sold at Home Depot.

A countertop to sit and eat at. It folds down when not in use because it is located between two doorways.

The shelf above. I asked Mark if he thought it looked like Cracker Barrel in here...he said "no". Thank goodness.  (No offense to CB - I do love your Hashbrown Casserole -)

Trying to be organized...I've always wanted a chalk board in my kitchen.

Fun Stuff....
I've had boxes of things sitting in my basement for 5 years. That is how long we have lived in this house. Knowing that we would be tearing out the kitchen eventually, I never unpacked much of my kitchen wares after we moved in. On Saturday, Mark brought up all of the boxes. Let me tell you...It was like Christmas in here!
Everything was washed and then inspected to see if it would make "the cut".
I picked what I wanted to keep and the rest is to go. Some has already been given away, some will be donated and some will be for sale at an upcoming flea market.

Here are some of the things I decided to keep...

Jadite tumblers scored at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store and a set of vintage Anchor Hocking mugs.

A vintage paper towel & wax paper holder. This was bought on ebay. It is mounted on the wall and holds a real roll of paper towels.

Mark converted this old shortening tin into a garbage can by adding wheels to the bottom and a handle to the lid. This baby cost me $3 at a flea market last year.

An old wooden recipe box holds some of my late Grandma Kate's recipes.

A recipe for one of her famous Italian desserts, Polenta Dulce (Sweet Corn Mush) written in her own handwriting.
I plan to make some of this soon, now that I have a place to cook again.

Thank you for visiting and allowing me to brag a little about this space. It has been a long time coming, but well worth it. Thank you to Mark (my honey) who did ALL of the work.

Check back tomorrow when I lay out how much this project actually cost. I am going to tally it all up and share it with the world. That is one thing I love about blogs, you can learn so much from real people and real life situations. So I want to pass on what we have learned throughout this process to you.

Until then,
KayteeJane