The Kitchen... Dun dun DUUUUUUNNNN

In terms of our budget and our schedule, the kitchen is the big bad. It is the most sensitive to being out of date, impacts all of our lives on a daily basis, is a primary entertainment venue, etc. etc. You all know about kitchens.

The refrigerator isn't functional according to the seller's declaration. Thank goodness. The alcove to the right has three doors: to the left is the side exterior door/basement staircase, to the right is the pantry/closet and then across from the staircase going up there is a coat closet. You can actually see out the front door when the doors are closed.

The office is through the doorway. The stove will end up switching places with the fridge so that we can set the fridge even with the countertop. The cabinets above the fridge also have that glass front top row, and we will vent the cooktop and microwave through them and to the exterior, with a false back on the cabinets so you can't tell.

This door will get moved to the left to allow that strange recessed cabinet to get bumped out. The side cabinet next to the stove will be taken away to make room for the new doorways, so the fridge will be right next to the doorway. We'll have to get started on the project to actually get all the cabinet hijinks straightened out.

There is a nice pair of windows over the sink. Unfortunately, the window frame is in very rough shape, the counter and backsplash are all the same material and are also in rough shape. I actually like the top row of cabinets and I don't hate the doors of the middle cabinets, so painting the cabinetry and putting new hardware should get us pretty far. The cabinets were quite expensive when they were put in. I can only imagine how much they spent on all the funky countertops here and in the upstairs bath.

The little door is actually the first floor laundry chute access. Huzzah! I'd like to take the cabinet off the wall, paint it and use it as a hutch in the dining room. The wall will be opened up to about where the cabinet ends, so that we can have access to the island from the dining room. We have the original swinging door for that door frame in the basement. There's been some casual talk of hanging it between the kitchen and the mudroom to keep out the chill. 

So clearly, we have a lot of work to do in here, but by putting in new appliances we could live with the rest of it for awhile. We're hoping that we don't have to do that, but it all depends on how well the essential items are doing and when we sell our house and for how much. We would love to put in quartz counters, but may have to do an intermediate step of putting down new vinyl flooring (there's a huge, peeling seam running down the middle of the floor that I didn't get a picture of) and some new laminate counters and then saving our pennies for a few years before we do the 'real' renovation. It all sounds a little (or a lot) daunting, but even if the kitchen had been redone right before we moved in, we would have ended up doing at least some updates and new appliances over the next 30 years. We may anyway, but at least all the changes will be ours. 

I would like to take this moment to hop up on my design soapbox. It's past time we let go of this open cabinet kitchen craze. I have heard all the pros and I'm sure you have to, but the con is pretty huge: this is the  kitchen, people. Where people are cooking. Frying, flouring, mixing, cooking. Everything on those open shelves is going to be filthy every time you want to use it. Maybe you don't mind washing things twice, but I certainly do. I am way too OCD to even consider open cabinets. 

My plan is to paint all the cabinets BM Mayonnaise, and paint the interior of the glass front cabinets either the same aqua as the dining room or a lighter shade of it, which will also be used to paint the new faux beadboard ceiling in the kitchen. We want dark brown countertops and actually really like our current vinyl floor so we'll probably stick with a different style of vinyl. 

I love this kitchen from Modwalls, and I would even allow the open shelves for cookbooks. I'd go with an undermount sink instead of the big farmhouse. The Mr. has a personal vendetta against stainless steel appliances so we've selected everything in white. Due to his other vendetta against glass tile I probably couldn't get this backsplash, which is in a color called Surf (squee!) but I luuuuuuuuuurv it. Like, I want to lick this kitchen. It's delicious. 

He has approved an opaque subway tile backsplash in white (so avant garde!) but he doesn't care about the pattern so much. Thanks to this post by Kate at Centsational Girl, I was able to get his okay for a herringbone pattern (Sarah Richardson for HGTV): 

Fortunately or unfortunately, the Mr. is the one who does the cooking and the dishes in our household, so he gets the final word on all the kitchen decisions. I love colored glass tile but I don't love it enough to cook every night. Alas.