Before and After: The Kitchen

There are still a few small pieces to finish up in my kitchen, but it's so nearly complete that I felt it was due time to share the amazing transformation pictures. Here are some side-by-side comparisons of different parts of the room. (Sidenote: this is a huge project for me, and while wedding dress shopping with & for my pal Rebecca yesterday, I decided this kitchen is my wedding. The appliances = the dress. The counter-tops = the catering. The light fixtures = the flowers. Etc, etc, etc. Basically, to rationalize draining my rainy-day-fund into this space, I am seeing it as a transformational life event akin to those that all my friends are undertaking (and spending money on) that I am not. When I look at it that way, I think perhaps I should set up a registry for my kitchen...mostly joking...at the least I might write some cheesy vows and pop some bubbly when the feeling moves me.)

Pantry/Fridge Becomes Back Entry

Opposite Side of Pantry

Sink wall becomes fridge and counter space

View into the pantry before and after (back door moved!)

Stove wall

Window wall total transformation

Cooking in this gorgeous space is the best. Here are some of my favorite views:

Hidden in the lower cabinet are cookbooks. I love how functional this formerly unused space is! I also love getting to display my favorite vintage glasses and pottery in the glass front cabinets bookending the windows.

For fun, I painted the edge of my basement door the same orange-red as the back door. So when it's open a bit you get a little surprise pop of color.

The view into the kitchen from the front entry, with a little peek of the amazing vintage-inspired lights. This view is so stunning and still very shocking to me.

And a final marvel of this space: all the light! The photo below was taken on my cell a few days ago as I was leaving for work. All the light you see is what is spilling in through the windows. I love how bright and inviting the room is. And that pop of red (on the then drying back door) is absolutely the best.

Kitchen Renovation: Moving Along

Those dusty, dirty, century-old floors have new life. I couldn't believe my eyes this morning:

Unfortunately, as you can see in the last photo, there is a little water damage area that I am not pleased with (character? charm?) and even if I could live with it, my designer/friend says she cannot and she plans to call my contractor tomorrow and yell at him for leaving it like this and not finding a good solution. Gulp. Today has been a day of yelling/talking sternly at various people involved with doing the work on my kitchen, and I'm not all that fond of days like this. It's sad to learn that sometimes being harsh is what has to happen to get things done. People will walk all over you if you don't stand up for yourself. Isn't that sad?

So here's another cool photo of the new ceiling (pre-paint). I cannot wait for the awesome vintage-inspired lights to go in! Stay tuned.

And finally some photos that simply show the sheetrock up, the taping and some primer done. Once this happened I really got a sense of the feeling/layout of the space. 

Cabinets arrived today -my downstairs is full of 24 boxes, therefore my downstairs does not currently have room to move around in. Once those start going in tomorrow, it's really going to start to feel like a kitchen again.

My goal is to cook a meal in it by my 29th birthday, which gives me approximately four weeks.

Kitchen Renovation: Week Three

Former back door: GONE!

Kitchen Vent: IN!

Overhead lighting/mechanical: DONE! (Pretty fixture comes at end)

Oh, bit by bit it's happening. And it's so fun to watch the new space slowly come together.

before and after: the secret garden

My Mom has been keeping a very detailed record of all the work I've done in my yard and house in the nearly three-years of living here, and I have to say I'm very grateful for her efforts.

Today she sent me a series of photos of my yard from my first walk-through to last weekend, and it showed me something important: despite how relatively bad it looks currently, it looked SO much worse. I've come a long way, even if I have a long way to go.

July 2010:

And, again, this past weekend April 2012:

You can be sure I will post many photos this summer, as this is an early spring clean-up and it's going to be a different story when it's in full boom.

My little secret garden: you've come a long way, baby.

put a bird on it (my house)

Last week was taking a turn for the worse when I was running to the bus and about to slip my bare-feet in my cute new flats, and discovered what I thought was a rather fuzzy gray rock in one of the shoes.

Dead mouse.

Like many "home disasters," I confronted this one with shock followed by a deep feeling of injustice followed by a wish for help followed by an annoyance at my perceived need for help and ending with a silent dealing with the issue at hand. And just as when I removed the dead squirrel from beneath my back steps a few summers ago, when I was between roommates and was forced to confront these types of issues solo, I dealt with the dead mouse with silence until it was disposed of, and then let out a rather dramatic scream. Or whatever you call sustained screaming. It feels good: deal with the issue silently, then react dramatically.

I haven't been able to get my foot in the shoe since, as every time I look at it I think how cute and quirky the mouse looked all curled up upon itself - spooning the air in a way - probably not all that dissimilar to how I look while asleep. And the thought makes me a little depressed, so I am avoiding the shoes. Plus, I think I should probably Lysol the shit out of them and I don't have any on hand. (This is when being a green hippie does not translate well to the real world where mice die in pretty shoes and feet are scared to reenter that space without something poisonous that can kill any trace of dead mouse germs.)

BUT. After the dead mouse incident, which incidentally (good use of that word there) also made me miss my bus, my week improved.

My mom came to visit and there were no massive disagreements and we even laughed a bit - especially when she exited a public bathroom with toilet paper hanging out of her pants and had the most classically neurotic reaction. I also learned something new about her, which is that when I drop things in a store (an alarm clock off a shelf say) her reaction is to literally RUN AWAY, as if she doesn't know the person who is lame enough to drop objects in stores. I countered her embarrassment by saying loudly, "Why are you running away from your clumsy daughter?!"

But anyhow, we got home and yard improvement projects done, and that always makes me feel better about everything.

First, I tilled the heck out of my backyard. Here is an embarrassing shot of me getting stuck in a corner and probably cursing out the tiller:

That's really hard on your forearms, as you are pulling backwards intensely to keep yourself from getting dragged in the dirt by the fast-moving-machine. Here's the backyard after all our work, and despite how bad it looks, trust me it's come a long way in three years:

It's ready for my little vegetable farm, plus the area I put down grass seed last year has sprouted very healthy, very green grass. The raspberries in the back right corner also look happy! And the grapes on the fence are just starting to spring back to life.

My secret garden area also got a makeover:

When I moved in three years ago, I didn't even know there was a patio because it was buried in weeds! I am proud of our progress. The peony is very healthy, the irises my Mom transplanted last year are back, and the roses are starting to listen to me when I tell them to wrap beautifully around the fence.

Then we moved inside and hung some art in the orange room because Mom is really good at this and much more patient than I am in these matters. Behind every piece of art are a half dozen or more nail holes from my attempts at hanging art:

The first row is a bunch of Charley Harper "prints" I repurposed from an old calendar. The second row is artwork cherished by my housemate. The final piece of art is a needlepoint my mom made in the seventies of the seasons.

And let me just add, I looked at all the art throughout my house and about 80% of it has a bird on it and I just feel really annoyed that this has become some sort of hipster joke because I swear I have loved birds forever and always enjoyed them in artwork and now I am just a trendy dork. I worked at a bird sanctuary in 2003! I am ahead of the trend, dammit!

Then, when my mom left, I walked around and remembered - which I need to remember as often as possible - that even with mice dying in shoes, my house can be pretty charming and wonderful.

an entryway

When I bought this 101-year-old house, I knew a few things to be true:

1) I was the third in a line of single women owners.

2) The house was made progressively more livable by the previous two women.

3) Yet my two most recent predecessors had found the home too overwhelming to manage alone.

So I decided to go at it alone.  At 25 years old, I signed a piece of paper that has radically changed my entire life.  I liked that the house was old but livable; that there was enough still to do for the house; that I could be part of the story of the house.  I liked knowing I could care for this place and make it better. I wanted to make it better. I didn't want a perfect house.

Bit by bit I have added to the home. I've replaced the back door (mostly for safety reasons), painted the guest room, and added new blinds throughout. I've discovered that even the smallest project can have the largest reward. For instance, after two years of dripping, I paid a handyman $50 to replace a part in the faucet of my tub. It no longer drips and my hot/cold handles turn on and off much more smoothly. Within five minutes of the repair I saw how my quality of life had actually gone up.  And I had to laugh at myself for waiting so long to do a fairly simple task. 

This weekend I added to the story again by replacing my front door. A lot of cold air was coming in the warped storm door and through the very old wooden frame.  The old door was a dingy brown and didn't quite match the charm of my farm house.  Come summer I will be slapping on a fresh coat of poppy-orange paint to this beauty. The entry into my home will sing.

close your eyes & imagine it orange

I think the entryway into a home should articulate what you want those entering to feel and experience in your home. What exactly does an orange door, that keeps out the cold and holds in the warmth, say? I hope it properly welcomes those who choose to visit me, and those future visitors to whoever then lives in this old, blue house.