What does Quaint mean to you?

This used to be our kitchen. Let us briefly reflect on it's good points.


1. White cabinets (very Victorian)
2. Neutral counter top. Though hunter green is not my color of choice, definitely workable.
3. Painted wood paneling (also very Victorian)
4. Side by side fridge
5. Quaint

So you see it isn't a bad kitchen. It has some things going for it. For 100 years, people cooked there, well maybe not on the gas range. It may have been a cook stove at first (more on that later). But people prepared their meals on the counters. (Well, actually we know that the Formica was put in about 10 years ago). But they prepared food on some kind of surface before that, I'm sure. They washed their hands and dishes and little 'owies' at that very sink. Okay, okay. The sink is stainless steel. I know it isn't more than 20 years old either. And those cabinets are not cute when you get closer. So let's just rip the whole thing out and start over! Because, honestly, 2 people can't fit in it when either the dishwasher or the oven door is open!




Ahhhhhhh . . . . isn't this better?!

And even though it was quaint in it's previous size, quaint not only means cute and charming, but also SMALL. So we took a wall down to make it bigger.

I bet ya'll were gettin' claustrophobic just looking at the pictures!

Now, Mark may tell you to never leave your wife alone with a carpenter in the kitchen while you're talking with his partner about the stairwell. You see, that 3 min is all it took for us to come up with a whole new kitchen plan. I really didn't intend for it to get this far. I was just gonna rip a wall down, use some of the existing cabinets and appliances and make it a little more roomy. I did keep the fridge! If you look right above the fridge you can see through the wall into the foyer and the staircase that goes to the second floor. Cool, huh? (Okay, that was all my vain attempt to look on the bright side of the gutted kitchen. How'd I do?)

The thing about ideas is they tend to grow.

See that start of a wall? No? You don't see it? It's the boards you can see. No, not the old dark boards, the new ones straight ahead. That's going to be our new powder bathroom. We call it that because it's going to be about as big as the powder compact I keep in my purse at all times. Seriously. It's little. But this great house didn't have a bathroom on the first floor and did you hear I've got 4 kids? There's NO WAY I'm having a little pee trail up my hardwood stairs. Did I just say that?!

Okay moving on . . .

Here's what the kitchen looks like from the Dining Room.

Though it's a little hard to see that's a swinging door on the right. (I just love swinging doors in old houses!) "Why?" You ask, " is there a hole in the Dining Room wall, too?" THAT'S where Mark and my Dad ripped out the old cook stove pipe! Seriously! It really did have a cook stove. And it was a large cook stove pipe encased in brick that my husband manhandled out of the wall. In doing so he opened up enough space to make a pantry there! I told you, ideas tend to grow.


So that's where we stand on the kitchen. All we have to do now is: floors, cabinets, electricity, walls, paint, counter tops, appliances, lights, and . . . oh yeah, build a bathroom. I'll let you know how it goes!