Kitchen - Before

Alright, WELL!! I barely even know where to begin - I'll start with this - I saw printable picture on facebook this morning that said in pretty fonts "If your dreams don't scare you they're not big enough" - My first thought was this: If my reality scares me (to death) does that mean I'm living my dreams? LOL!! Lets just say there are lots of things in the works right now, and to me/us, they are fairly significant!! I know, suspense, right?! I don't want to falsely inflate hopes, but anyway, it's all good news, and you know I'll share the details when I can!

Ok, onto the project of summer, part one: The Kitchen. We've been waiting since March 22nd for our income tax refund, and it finally arrived yesterday! FINALLY! It is not a large refund at all - but we've been wanting to redo our kitchen, so watch for posts about the process. We will be redoing this thing on a shoestring budget, literally. We got estimates from all over the place and various companies and people - all will cost about $4000 - $7000, which is waaaaaaaay MORE than we have to spend, for cabinets only. We will not be replacing any appliances at this point. They don't "match" but they work, so we're keeping them. In order to meet the needs of our tiny budget, Brian will be building the cabinets himself. Praise the Lord for his skills. That man astonishes me on a daily basis. And usually in a good way;-)

It is very hard for me to even talk about my kitchen - because I love it so much, and at the same time, it's incredibly crappy. I just feel like saying XYZ & Z & Z & Z need replacing - makes me sound ungrateful for what I do have - which is sooo not the case. I am exceedingly glad for my house, and even this kitchen. In honest fact, it's probably needed replacing for 20 years, but we've babied it along. The kitchen is original to the house, so...it's 61 years old. I do realize it is exceedingly above what others in many countries have, and I am grateful for how useful it's been. I also realize that it's gross, and old, and definitely "sub par" for anyone living in this country:-) So please don't mistake my "this is whats wrong with it" for ungratefulness, at all. Just pointing out facts. I am both sad to see it go, and glad that we are able to improve our living conditions, and this old house that has been so good to us!

Ok, onto the pics!! I took WAY more pics than I am posting, but I thought they might be fairly boring to you all, so unless I get requests to see it aaaallll, I thought this hit the highlights pretty good:-)

A note also about the pictures - I did NOT clean up or tidy at ALL before I took them. I was 10 minutes away from packing everything into boxes, so it didn't seem worth my effort to clean and organize first. So these are very raw pics from the everyday existence of my kitchen.

I do not have a place to store these items anywhere else, so I keep them inside the oven, and put them all on the kitchen table when the oven is in use

The upper cabinets come down really low - so low in fact that my kitchen aid and my blender cannot fit under them, so they sit in front, and block the door from opening - I put less-used items behind that door, like the fancy glasses. The lower cabinets are also too small to fit the kitchen aid, so it sits out.

The top of my fridge pretty much always looks like this: I have a basket up there containing all the bits and bobs for the food processor, the kitchen aid, and the ever important Easy Bake:-), Cereal boxes, a basket containing candy/snacks the kids can't get into, chip bags, and Brian's lunch sacks. I don't love it, but lack another place to put those items

On the wall with the stove - there is a stove, no vent, no range hood etc, and then this old makeshift cabinet. It was here when we moved in, and has a piece of wood on the top, just balancing there. It's never had a bottom drawer.

Since I have no closets at all, other than 3 teeny ones (one in each bedroom), all my brooms and stuff go here.

Beside the fridge, there is nothing but a wall - so I have a utility rack set up as a pantry of sorts. For food and appliances and stuff

A normal view of the right side of the kitchen

A normal view of the left side

Last year we removed all the lower cabinet doors and replaced with fabric, because all the hinges and latches were broken, and none of them closed.

So I packed up all the upper stuff into boxes! And much of the lower stuff too, although won't demo that quite yet:-)

Bye bye uppers!

A new look - until the cabinets are built by the masterful Brian

checking out the header - there are no wires or pipes, so it's coming down! Yay!!

So the plan - ooooh the plan!! Well, we will be about tripling our cabinet space, getting a pantry, etc. Right now, it's kitchen across the back wall, with makeshift stand ins on either side, surrounding the fridge and stove. The new plan will give us a U shaped kitchen, having it wrap around both sides also, not just the back wall, as it is now, if that makes sense. The drawings look amazing:-)

It's been decided that while the lowers get demo'ed and built...I will move out! Canada here I come! I have lots of packing up to do before I can go, but when I return...it'll be "ready enough" for me to use! (while chances are, not totally done, I won't be gone that long:-). While I'm gone, Brian will be eating a lot of sandwiches or things that can be made in a microwave, I guess...on disposable plates! Somehow I think that he will not be doing dishes in the bathtub - actually, how much do we want to bet he'll be at his sisters every night? Exciting times ahead!