Project: Kitchen Before & After

This is what my kitchen looked like when I bought the house.

To begin with, I decided to repair these cabinets.

That pantry was just a big box, like a closet. It was jammed right up against the window. The corner between the little cabinet by the stove and the sink base was empty. No cabinet, no storage. It was completely inaccessible.

The cabinets were made of particle board covered in beadboard.
There were no shelves inside of them.

When you walked in from the front door, the whole room looked like it was the kitchen.

The carpenters removed all of the counter tops. They built in a cabinet against the wall with the window, with cut-outs to replace the existing doors. We centered the sink to the window and the window between the pantry and the other cabinet. (That really bothered me.) They reinforced the pantry and put in shelves.

We moved the bar closer into the kitchen, to make it a more convenient work space and to give more living room.

I replaced the appliances with black ones, so they don’t stand out so much.

I painted the walls the same color as the lightest shade of wood in the logs.

I put in a hardwood floor.

I added a higher bar around the counter, so the counter top is not visible from the front door.

When I could afford it, I replaced the cabinets with new ones. The appliances are the same.

I bought a wine fridge on Clearance at Lowes and we built it in.

The wrought iron that holds up the cabinet over the wine fridge is actually ornamental hardware I got at a garage sale.