Before/During: Kitchen/Dining Part 1

We have a dining table. Two of them actually.

This one we inherited from Husband's grandfather. I love it.


Look at these legs! Aren't they just divine. Eventually, I'm going to have a leaf made and the whole thing refinished and the chairs tightened and then it'll be superb.

This one is our landlord's:
Yeah, it's nice. But we don't need it. It's not ours. We don't want it. It's IN THE WAY. By July he's going to sell it. And when it's gone - and I get back from Dallas, our dining table will move into the kitchen area.

Before July, this is going to be emptied and moved out to the garage where it will be put to use storing things like Christmas ornaments and garden supplies. Or whatever.

These two items will get moved into the kitchen:

The dining room will become a play area for the baby. Before that, though, it will become a little loungey seating area. The light fixture will be replaced. It will be awesome.

So that's the plan. This weekend, I got fed up with the cabinets over the penisula in the kitchen. I've been meaning to open them up since we moved in, and fill this awkward spot with cookbooks, but I just hadn't gotten around to it. (Full disclosure, if we ever buy this place I will take untold amount of please in taking a sledgehammer to this particular set of uppers.)

Before:


After:

See that bit over by the wall? It's weird to get to and you can only get to it from the window-side of things. That's Where the cookbooks will go.

I did not straighten before I took any of these pictures because I'm lazy. And I just did the dishes. I promise it's not nearly as visually noisey as it appears here. I blame the camera. And also my laziness.

So since I have until July to get all of this prepped...and even longer before we actually become parents, I'm taking my sweet time. It doesn't help that I get distracted. Or that I'm also trying to finish a novel. Wish me luck!

Dishwashers are for Babies

I am currently participating in this, the Apartment Therapy Spring Kitchen Cure.

They want my before pictures to go directly to them, but once it's wrapped I'll post them up here, along with all of the helpful tips I learned for keeping your kitchen clean and decluttered.

Unfortunately, I unwittingly jumped the gun a little here, but I'm ok with that. Because eventually my entire kitchen will be that organized.

Also, when we moved in I knew we didn't have a dishwasher. This didn't bother me. In fact, I actually scoffed "Dishwashers are for babies." And while I still have no desire to have a disposal (I could do an entire post on how bad *those* are for the sewer systems...they mostly encourage people to gum up the works) I have to say that I eat my words a little when I walk into the kitchen and see the remains of dinner...because we like to cook. A lot. From scratch. Almost. Every. Night.

Dishwashers are not for babies.
They're for people who like to spend some time outside of the kitchen during their day.

Before/After: Kitchen part 1

Before. This is actually WAY before. This is a midway-through-unpacking image of our lovely mid-70s kitchen.


After. I got sick of the doors. They were a hazard...and inconvenient. No bueno. (And yes, we are that anal. I didn't have to straighten up much for the shelves to look like that.)

But notice something odd about that image? If you look at the stile on the left hand side...about where the hinge would be...

You see it. When they stained our cabinets this *lovely* color, they stained the hinges. I had to chip through stain just to get to the screws.


This makes me stabby.

Deep even breaths and repeat after me:

"Not my house...
Not my house...
Not my house...."