So far, the kitchen has by far been the biggest and most time-consuming project we've worked on. When we came to look at the house, it was small, dark, and not laid out very well.  We actually all stood there wondering where all the appliances were supposed to go. (Many times, foreclosed houses have no appliances in them when you buy them, or bottom-of-the-line new appliances installed by the bank.)  There was no dishwasher ever installed, but there was also no space to put both an oven and a refrigerator.

I don't have a true "before" picture to share right now. I may be able to track one down to share later, but I do have a lot of in-progress photos.  Almost right away, we knew we needed to tear down some walls. The kitchen and dining room are right beside each other, and before there was just a small doorway between the two.  We've knocked down the wall separating them completely. We are rebuilding part of it as a refrigerator nook, and the other side will be open, with a counter separating the rooms.  This will give us storage space and an extra place to eat and prepare food. It also really opens up the house!

You're seeing it correctly. The cabinets are painted 3 different colors.

At the very beginning, we were thinking about saving the cabinets - obviously they needed a paint job. After seeing the faulty plumbing and the water damage it had caused, we decided to just take it all out.



After putting a few holes in the wall, we decided to just go ahead and also take down the whole wall. (You might notice a pattern emerging here...) In retrospect, I guess we could have actually just patched it and left it, but I am actually glad we took the time to just take it down and replace. The wall was filled with some nasty stuff (rat poop, decades old razors) and obviously was not very strong. I don't think I would have trusted our new cabinets to be held up properly with this wall!



This area had a little L-shaped cabinet configuration. I can't quite remember, but I think they were actually all the same color! Either way, we knew we wanted to open up this space so we started tearing up the wall almost immediately. We did it on a whim and all we had was a mini crowbar, but that did the job! We were just thankful that it was not plaster.


                       

You may be noticing the crazy color scheme here. Dark green in the hallway to the left, dark red cabinet, bright orange kitchen, a lighter, but still bold, green in the dining room to the right

Here you can see a glimpse of the base cabinets and the counter tops. Again, multicolored cabinets and drawers! Who does this?! There was an ugly peg board over the old stove exhaust (see above) so we tore that out to see what was going on. As soon as we saw this brick, our minds started churning with ideas for bringing some kind of exposed brick into the space. You never know what you'll find behind a wall (just hope it's not more rat poop!)





Next up, we started on the floors. Installing and refinishing hardwood floors warrants a whole other post, but I'll give you the summary: it's hard. We only put new hardwoods in the kitchen and part of a bedroom, both of which were small spaces, and they took much longer than we expected. That is probably our biggest lesson during this renovation: it's going to take longer than expected.

The kitchen is in much better shape these days and we have a functional gas stove, dishwasher, over-the-range microwave, new counters, new plumbing, new sink, etc. We are still working on our exposed brick shelf, the back splash, and the bar/peninsula area that is open to the dining room. More kitchen updates to come soon!