Kitchen Makeover

I have been going through a lot of old pictures lately in preparation for my middle daughter's birthday surprises. I love all of the good memories those images evoke, but there are some scary images as well. Most of the scary ones involve hair, fashion or decorating!

When we bought the house we are still living in, it was brand new. Unfortunately, we made the final decision to purchase after the builder had already cemented in his design ideas. He did let us pick carpeting and a few colors, but, alas, not the things that would be inexpensive to change. So, I made the best of it for a number of years. The design was a bit off what I would have chosen although, to be honest, my choices right now would be nothing like my choices would have been back then either and I'm sure I would have had to do lots of redecorating in any case.

I thought it might be fun to give you a glimpse of how things have changed as time-and a lack of new seasonal and decorating posts-permits. Since I found a few kitchen photos, we will start there.

I don't have any kitchen per se shots. Let's just say that with a job, many volunteer responsibilities and raising 3 little girls, I really didn't have any reason to just take pictures of the rooms in my house. So, please look beyond the people in these pictures (sorry Becky & Jen) to the surroundings-and after you ask the same question I am asking..."what WAS she thinking?"

Now, from this picture, I know we have already lived in the house a number of years as we bought this house the year Jennie was born and she's a teenager in the photo. I know I must have made my share of changes over the years but they would have been just small changes-perhaps the dreaded wallpaper border or chicken coop shelf(I was primitive country back then after all)-but quite frankly, my memory is a bit shady B.P. (before photos).

My cabinets started out as walnutty brown formica with an avocado green carved detail in a Spanish inspired design. In all of these photos it appears I have already gone over the green carvings with a different color paint to try to rid this room of some of the avocado!Spanish so doesn't fit in with the lovely pig and cow design I had going. The appliances and countertops were all avocado green as well.

In the above transformations, I had already discovered Z-Brick. I remember seeing it in a magazine but this is way before the big box home stores of today. When I found these gems at a local hardware store, I was beside myself! And, I must say, they really did give the feel and look of real brick. I had fun installing them and loved them for many years.

The green appliances went first. They were replaced first with white then black and lastly stainless steel. I still love the stainless but must admit to now thinking possibly about a new French door refrig. We shall see. I still totally love my dishwasher and double ovens-so genius because I very often cook needing 2 different temperatures-well, not VERY often but often enough. Okay, okay, at least for Thanksgiving and Christmas but with just two of us in the house these days, we use the small oven so often and it doesn't heat up the house nearly as much.

After the appliances changed, I finally convinced my husband that we just couldn't live with those avocado green couners one more minute! In my infinite wisdom, I decide to go with white tile on the counter and backsplash. I think I just wanted the biggest change I could come up with. We found a good handy man and had him install the new counters and backsplash as well as adding a skylight to the kitchen. Our kitchen is actually in the middle of our house so it was quite dark even without that hideous green. The above picture shows the white counters and the start of my cabinet transformation. I had forgotten that I had the old exhaust hood removed, the cabinet shortened and the microwave installed. I am now sorry that I didn't just have that cabinet pushed up to the ceiling. I would have kept more storage and I like the look of the uneven cabinet tops. Maybe a project for the near future?

I forgot the first big change to this room. It was originally a kitchen/dining combo but when we enclosed our garage to make a new family room, we moved the dining room to the old familyroom and had a new bar and counter added to the kitchen. We then had some new cabinets and storage added at the other side of the bar. Are you beginning to see how we have over built for our area? Oh well, I love my house and am perfectly happy top live here forever.

The best change in this room came in the change of the cabinetry but that is another long story so it will be part 2. Stay tuned.