The Kitchen

All right folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for. You’ve patiently skimmed through all my posts about books, musings about culture, poems, etc. waiting for this post. I finally finished the last room in my house and I love it!

The kitchen needed the most work and the process was the most gradual. Previously, the kitchen had old white cabinets with clapboard doors. The only appliances were an oven and fridge. The first step was to replace the oven and install a microwave and a small cabinet above the range. This replaced a couple plain shelves.

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Later, I replaced some of the wall cabinets by the fridge. The new cabinets provided a little more shelf space and were almost more conveniently placed. Then my dad helped install lauan, crown molding, and a thin trim around the cabinets we bought off the rack to give them the appearance of custom built ins.

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To reface the remaining cabinets around the sink which I did not want to completely replace, I hired my friend, Noah Gould. To replace the dated, flat clapboard, he made doors to match the shaker style of the newly purchased ones. He also made me two sets of glass cabinet doors. This was something I really wanted so I could show off my vintage Pyrex, milk glass, and other pretty dishes.

We painted the walls yellow, the trim white, and finally painted the cabinets…green! I had wanted green cabinets from almost the very beginning of the process. While looking at pictures and magazines from the time my house was built (1917), almost all of the kitchen cabinets were natural wood, white, or green. I loved the green, but kept hesitating because I didn’t want to risk the resale value of the house with an unusual color. I went back and forth about this for months while other progress was being made. I’m glad I decided to go for green (and I guess that means I’ll be holding on to the house for a while!).

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I’ve never been a big fan of cooking, but it will certainly help having the kitchen done now. It is so beautiful and sunny all day long (thanks to windows on three sides). Come on over and let’s cook something together!

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Updates Completed:

• Walls scraped, patched, and painted
• Trim scraped, patched, and painted
• Four new cabinets installed
• Microwave installed for the first time
• Oven/stovetop replaced
• Lauan, crown molding, and trim added to replacement cabinets
• Old cabinets and drawers refaced
• Cabinets painted
• Outlets replaced and upgraded for appliances
• Door hardware stripped of paint and cleaned
• Light fixture replaced