The Kitchen Facelift

You know how it always looks better in the pictures??

THIS....

...Is my lovely Victorian home on the hilltop.

In real life, the overgrown-by-weeds-drop-off, just feet from the porch on the right, and the traffic zooming by on the road, again just feet from the left, have been carefully "cropped" off. Our never ending project is to make it as lovely as the pictures (at least the ones in our dreams.) It's a very old house with lots of "character!" (A nice way of saying, "Well, that's really odd, what in the world were they thinking when they built it THAT way?)

Our first project, THE  KITCHEN.....

Apparently they decided that slapping on a cover-up coat of mint green paint would be a help in the selling process. (For the record, it was NOT a selling point for us!) We've quickly discovered that the previous owners home improvement philosophy was definitely "do it the quick way" not "do it the right way!" We ended up peeling the green off in big strips with a razor blade and sanding down the almost as beautiful blue underneath before we transformed them with a coat of black.

BEFORE

AFTER

(I even managed to find the countertops along the way =)

 Special thanks to my Mother and my DH who spent many hours on this project while I was unpacking and trying to make some sense out of the rest of the house! I'm quite pleased with the results! Someday I dream of having new cupboards with doors that shut without slamming and drawers that don't create a sawdust pile every time they are tugged open, and maybe some linoleum without blue flowers and holes, but in the meantime this will do just fine!

 

I also inherited this monstrous piece with the purchase of our house. Now I know that "vintage" is very cool these days, and many times I agree, but this  just wasn't  working for me. I like my modern conveniences to be, well, MODERN. 

Just one week after we moved in I found this one

at a yard sale for just $40. I was thrilled!! That's my kind of home improvement project right there. 

Out with the old in with the new in 30 minutes flat!

 This is what we lived with for 2 and a half weeks until we could "move in" to the kitchen cupboards.

Let's just say it makes cooking a wee bit challenging!!

 

 Oh yes, THAT is MUCH better!!

For now the dining room makeover will be considered completed by the replacing of the crazy flowered curtains (see above) with simple mini blinds. Eventually I'd like to repaint the walls of the kitchen and dining room with a fresh coat, eventually.....

  A glimpse at part of the "character" inside my house. This one I'm okay with.

And with the doors closed (the way they will remain as long as there are 4 crazy, energetic, always-on-the-move boys living here!)

And, just because it will probably never be organized enough to photograph again, the fabulously wonderful walk-in pantry! This will be put to good use with my new experiment with once-a-month grocery shopping!

Thanks for stopping in! Next time let me know ahead of time and I'll turn on the coffee pot!

Stay tuned I hope to do lots more before and after posts as we complete more projects around here!