the junk house -kitchen edition

Now that you've seen the outside of the Junk House, it's time to venture inside. The kitchen was, of course, the most consuming individual room of the remodel.

It was actually remodeled twice. Once, from the initial gutting, and then again when we decided to make the house our permanent home. You see, we were just going to live in the house while we were building our new home. In order to make it livable though, we had to put a lot of time and money into it...windows, insulation, all new siding, and total reinforcement of the non-existent foundation (remember, we're 97 years old). In that process, the place started to grow on us, and we decided to make it our permanent home. While the house was just fine for a temporary place to live, knowing we were going to live here for a very long time made us re-think the big picture and function of the current floor plan. Unfortunately, we ended up re-doing and un-doing some of our recently completed remodeling projects. It almost killed my husband to take out/move walls that had just been freshly sheet rocked, painted and trimmed out.

I cannot begin to describe how disgusting the kitchen was. It's hard to see just how grimy and gross it was in this scanned photo. Cedar shakes ran around the tops of the cabinets, the light fixtures were covered with thick brown dirt and when we removed the cupboards, we found a mouse graveyard. Blech!


I have tried to stand in the same spot for the after pictures to give a good idea of how things have changed.


I think the only thing that stayed the same is the kitchen window over the sink, which isn't visible in this shot.

Below is the view from the living room, through the dining room.


We added the wall between the kitchen and dining room.


For phase two of the kitchen remodel, we took out a wall to make the kitchen bigger and added another wall of cabinets.


Here's one more after. (I think you've seen enough before's to get the idea.)


I love my kitchen. I love the vintage/retro feel. If there was room, I would have a bigger eating bar, but we make due with the two seater. That's the only thing I think I would change.

Dear Meadowbrook Kitchen,
You are an awesome kitchen. You have cooked lots of hearty meals for the men in my life, and they are grateful. On occasion, you crank out some great chick food too, for me and whatever girls I can convince to visit! The only issue I have with you is that somehow you are letting the occasional mouse get in under my sink. I have done my part with a can of spray foam, but somehow they seem to sneak by on the rare occasion. Is there a secret passage I don't know about? I don't appreciate you fraternizing with the enemy, and feel we really need to deal with this, then we can get back to our normal, great relationship. I look forward to many more culinary adventures together. You're a good, hardworking kitchen.

p.s. It is hard to take good indoor pictures! I had the toughest time getting accurate color and exposure. The walls in the kitchen are a light apple green, but I couldn't seem to get that to show up right.