More Thoughts on Kitchens.

The one thing about having a blog is you get so see how long you procrastinate on certain projects.  I wrote about our kitchen falling apart here in 2013! Since then we haven't done anything about it. Except for today when I finally painted the space where the huge Microwave used to be in chalkboard paint.  While we really really want to renovate our kitchen we keep putting it off because it will be a huge project.  Scott  wants to open up the kitchen to the back room.  I am fine with our small kitchen and I would prefer to renovate the kitchen and keep it small.  I don't understand the obsession with multitudes of kitchen cabinets.  I really want minimal cabinets, some open shelving, a small counter depth refrigerator and a really great gas stove.  I would also like to incorporate a small eating/sitting area as well with a short shallow table at counter height.

Here are some of my favorite kitchens:

I love the simplicity of the white subway tiles (or is it painted brick?), the Potence style lamp, and open shelving.

Source unknown

Here I love the clean look of the kitchen without any upper cabinets (although this would be a little impractical for us).

Via Jersey Ice Cream Co.

I love how this kitchen even though tiny has everything incorporated so well.

Source unknown

I definitely want black and white cement tiles for our kitchen and and minimal or open shelving for the upper cabinets.

Francois Halard Kitchen (source unknown)

 This tiny kithcen is so cosy, I love the lamp, the open shelving and exposed brick.

Via Blood and Champagne

This kitchen is perfect! I love that it is laid back and looks lived in.

Via Desire to Inspire

Now it is time for me to stop dreaming and commit to doing something with our kitchen.

Kitchen Inspiration.

When we purchased our house the one thing that we knew we wouldn't need to spend any money on right away was the kitchen.  It was white, it had white kitchen cabinets, a decent counter top, a tiled back splash, and working appliances. Well, now we have been in the house for six years and the kitchen is falling apart.  Our microwave stopped working, the dishwasher stopped working, the refrigerator is in pretty bad shape and the cabinets just look ugly.  While we splurged on a Bosch dishwasher we haven't bought anything else. I am dreaming of a brand new kitchen with lots of white subway tiles, cement floor tiles and lots of dark grout.

I am in love with this light fixture and the amazing white subway tiles with dark grout:

Via Desire to Inspire

I love everything about this kitchen.  I love the cement floor tiles, the white subway tiles on the walls with the dark grout and open shelving.

Source Unknown

I would really like to incorporate a sitting area with maybe a wall of bookshelves. 

Jenna Lyons Brooklyn  Kitchen via Domino

I love how you can just throw open these doors and bring the outdoors inside.  Also these tiles are amazing!

Via Dwell

Our kitchen is tiny.  Since Scott and I cook all the time we have been dreaming of a larger kitchen.  We hope to some day combine the kitchen and the back room (which I use as my room for my various projects)  into one large kitchen.  The kitchen is next to the dining room and the back room is next to the kitchen and leads into the back yard.  Unfortunately the back room is a cheap addition (built sometime in the 50s) and the wall separating the kitchen and backroom is  a load bearing wall. 

We would need to remove the entire back room; build a new room; and install an "I" beam if we wanted to open up the kitchen.  Also, I would like to install large glass doors that will open up into the back yard.  This renovation will cost a lot.  So for now I am just dreaming of what I would like my new kitchen to look like.
 
When we do the kitchen renovation I would also like to dig up the cement in the back yard and plant some bamboo at the far end of the yard, build up the walls on each side and plant a few small trees in the ground; and then re-cement the yard so that we can continue to have a table with chairs and an umbrella outside. Clearly none of this will happen soon.  For now I am content planning all the details. 

Kitchen Dilemma!

My husband was removing the old grout from the kitchen and everything was going so well. I was excited for the old (dirty) grout to be removed so that we could re-grout the tiles and seal them. I was also excited to start cooking again. This picture shows the tiles while we were removing the old grout:


Well as things often tend to turn out with old houses things sort of took a turn for the worse. While he was removing the old grout a couple of the tiles broke! It appears that some of the old tiles weren't even glued to the floor. There was no adhesive on the tiles at all. The good thing is we found the SKU number on the tiles which meant, at least theoretically, that we could find the tiles. Anyway, imagine my horror when my husband told told me that he had broken "a couple" of the tiles. How was I ever going to find tiles to match the old tiles? This is what the floor looks like now:


We tried to find the tiles by the same manufacturer but they had been discontinued by Home Depot. However, we found tiles by the same manufacturer, in the same color, with a slight variation in the perimeter design (ours was rugged and the new one was smooth).

Hopefully, some time this week we can remove the old adhesive, lay the new tiles and finish re-grouting the floor. I need my kitchen back!

This has resulted in all my other projects being put on hold. I haven't worked on the backyard, I haven't started spring cleaning, and I haven't finished lining the kitchen shelves. On top of all this Kiran's birthday party is in three weeks. Thankfully the invitations are done (and they've been mailed).

Kitchen

The Kitchen window

This is the window in the kitchen. The rest of the kitchen needs work. We are working on re-grouting and sealing the kitchen tiles. I really want the kitchen to be done. I love to cook and ever since we started the kitchen project I haven't been cooking. I need a clean and beautiful space to cook! I will post more pictures once the grouting is done. This is the view from the kitchen into my room.

The kitchen needed the least amount of work when we bought the house. The cabinets had brass hardware which I switched out for silver hardware from Home Depot. Other than that I changed the light fixture and painted the kitchen in Ultra Pure White from Behr in high gloss. The kitchen like the rest of the house gets tons of light and it is very cheerful.

I love the fact that the kitchen is separate from the rest of the house. We do a lot of cooking so having an open floor plan would have meant that the grease from the cooking would get on everything. I also like the fact that the kitchen is small. It is really hard to clean a large kitchen, especially if it is used all the time.

Organizing

On Friday it took me for ever to get dressed for work. I have a closet-full of really nice clothes but most of them don't fit me. I keep thinking that I will go back to my pre-pregnancy size so I have not bought too many things in a larger size. Hence, my struggle every morning to look halfway decent when I go to work. On the weekends I have been wearing my pregnancy jeans with the elastic top. They are very comfortable but unfortunately (I guess I should say thankfully) they are too big for me now. I really need to spend a few hours this weekend trying on all my clothes and figuring out what fits and what doesn't so that I am not scrambling every morning to find something to wear. I am a huge fan of organizing everything. Someone once said "for every minute spent in organizing, an hour is earned.”

The picture below shows my spice cabinet. I find that having all the spices in glass jars makes cooking so much easier. Also it is totally uplifting to open my spice cabinet and see everything lined up neatly on the bright yellow shelves. A couple of weeks ago I lined all kitchen cabinets in "Dandelion" contact paper. It took me forever to measure and cut the paper but it was definitely worth the effort.

This is a picture shows a close up of the yellow shelves:

This weekend I plan on painting the backyard wall in a rusty-corral color. I am not sure if it is going to be too cold to do any painting. I am also going to motivate my husband to finish removing the old grout in the kitchen floor so that he can re-grout it. I like the tiles in the kitchen that the previous owner installed. The only problem is the that the tiles are white and the grout is white and they get really dirty. I was told that sealing the grout will prevent them from getting dirty. However, before we can seal it we have to remove the top layer of the existing grout and re-grout it. This takes for ever. But I will be glad when it is done because it takes me forever to clean the kitchen floors. I don't mind cleaning but it is a colossal waste of time to have to scrub every single tile and grout with a tiny brush when I could just mop the floor (once it is sealed).

I am also going to install two shelves in my room. I have a tiny room in the back of the house that I am going to use as my office/art room. I am super excited about getting that room finished.