Kitchen Nightmares

Most of the house was pretty livable when we moved in - mind you, we didn't have any children at that time (just three cats).  But the kitchen was another story.  I have lived in some pretty questionable rentals in my time, but this kitchen was one of the most dysfunctional!  Before I get to the kitchen, though, I'll show what we did in the dining room:

DINING ROOM 

Dining Room before - please excuse the fuzziness.  My husband was sanding plaster in the living room at the time.  This was the old room in the house that was painted, and it also had an original coal burning fireplace in it (the house had three of them).

Dining Room after - we're not afraid of color, and are huge fans of the historical ones, so we thought a reddish-orange would be keeping in character of the house.  We did love the original fixtures, but with the electrical upgrade to the house (from 60 amp to 200 amp) we couldn't reconnect the old fixtures and had to buy new ones.

Dining Room after - there was a big hole in the ceiling (partly from the electricians rewiring, partly from us moving the chandelier to the centre of the room).  We purchased a $40 medallion from Home Depot, and it worked perfectly to cover the holes without having to replaster (my brilliant idea)

Dining Room after - I had always wanted a 'coffee station' in my house, and this was the perfect nook.  Inexpensive floating shelves helped with storage, as well as a low bookcase which holds my Keurig and all the accessories!

KITCHEN

And now onto the nightmare that was the Kitchen:

Kitchen Before - the only counterspace was on the back wall.  It was too low, so you were always bending over too much when doing dishes (we had brought in a portable old dishwasher on the left to help with that).  That is pretty much all the storage.

Kitchen before - to the left of the kitchen was the door to the scary basement, open pipes, some upper cabinets and a pretty beat up wall.

Kitchen after - My husband ripped out all the lower cabinets and built his own from scratch. We went to a local store that carried used wood and MDF doors, and found ones that would work (they didn't have to fit perfect, as we gave some leeway with the cupboard openings.  We tiled the counters and put silver tile edging, and put a tile on the back splash.  The pantry to the left used to be a display shelf from my husband's work that he reworked and added doors to.  We purchased stainless steel appliances in a package (not top of the line, but not bottom of the barrel), painted and added a new linolium floor.  About $2500 for the appliances, and $1000 for everything else.

Kitchen after - The only place we bought a pre-made item was when it came to the drawers.  It saved us a huge headache from trying to make it out of scratch.  We bought a drawer set, and my husband worked it into a small counter space to contain the dishwasher (all the plumbing was open in the unfinished basement, so it was easy to tie into and set up the dishwasher wherever we wanted).

The kitchen was no longer a nightmare, and was finally a joy to cook in!