home goal 2012 - the kitchen renovation

...or the front-half-of-the-house renovation.  That's probably more appropriate.

We have had excuse after excuse (some good, some just that, excuses) as to why we can't do the kitchen this spring, summer, etc.  (we talk in seasons a lot.  Hmm.  Never thought about that before.  Anyway!)  Hubby is game on getting the kitchen done, and so am I.  We are jumping in, tossing our cares to the wind.

But not without a plan.  Which will be posted hopefully this week.

Here is the before-before, days before we moved in:

(I still have that bag!  But not the curtains.)

Here is a close-up of my mini-kitchen.  Before appliances.





Here's the breakfast nook.  The curtains are gone, as is the ivy.

We had to do a couple of things to the kitchen for safety and sanity, probably before we even finished unpacking:
1.  The pantry had to be fixed because it was too close to the stove, and it made the paint on the pantry bubble and scorched it a bit on spaghetti night!  Yikes!  So my hubby figured out a way to keep the pantry to some degree and added some much needed counterspace near the stove.  Glad he's creative like that.
2.  We had to remove that drop ceiling and the cabinets over the bar so that I didn't feel like I was cooking in a cave.  It was bad with one person, but unbearable with two and a toddler running around. 

So here is the most recent "before", as in when I was getting ready to make soup this weekend and decided to try my phone camera out.   Yes, that is just over three feet of clearance with the fridge in place (the black thing to the right, across from the sink).  It's tight.

 I'm hoping for a new camera for my birthday, and if that works out, the pictures should be much, much better.  The phone camera is not too bad, though.  It just seems to automatically adjust photos I upload from it, so they are not as clear, and they seemed cropped.  But even from this photo you get an idea about just how tight it is.

The positive:  It's got great, great potential.   It's not bad to cook in, now that there is space beside the stove.  We've got space to expand, that is a blessing!

(We've already dealt with the paneling.  The acoustic tile ceiling and fluorescent lighting are part of the kitchen reno plans.  Can you see where I slapped a photoimpact patch/did bad cloning on those cabinets over the bar and the window, to see if I could help the cave feeling?  Terrible job, but it gave me the guts to rip those suckers out!)

Another positive:  That big window in the breakfast room?  It looks out at this:

Which I love, love love about this house in the morning, reading the paper, blogs, or a book, drinking coffee.   Bliss before work.  We just need to be able to get a regular sized table in that nook, so the whole family can enjoy the garden!

So that's my goal for 2012.  The kitchen.  Which, given the open floor plan, also involves the living area and breakfast nook, and a bit of the dining room.   And a whole lot of elbow grease.  Which is why I was hesitant to jump in-- that's nearly half of the house!  But we're ready.  I think.