Now, this is going to be a multi-part, multi-year post, my friends. Fair warning.
The Kitchen. Heart of the home. Hope of my heart. I've never had a kitchen that was everything I wanted it to be-yes, that is a first-world issue, and I am completely aware of it. That said, the opportunity is here to create something functional that I will also love. It needs to have (according to my very long wish list): plenty of light; an island; a glass cooktop; plenty of storage; a baking cabinet; [marble countertops--impossible with the coffee-hounds in my family because I do not intend to bleach and scrub every day and a half]; the ability for many people to be in it at the same time, because this is where people just end up, isn't it?
High expectations. And with our budget.... well, not so easy.
First, though, the "where we started." This is the kitchen and butler's pantry--two adjoining rooms. I give the former owner a lot of credit for raising a large family using this kitchen. Here are photos from our first walk through before we bought the house. Let me just say that the photo on the top left is the built-in butler's cupboard, and it literally is what made me fall in love with the house. The top middle photo is the rest of the butler's pantry, with its newer cabinets, the huge freezer, the washer and dryer which were on the opposite wall, and the realtor showing us the place. The top right photo is the sink/radiator wall, which adjoins a wall with door into a full bath (that has two doors! one of them with a glass window!). Bottom left, you've seen this in a previous post, and bottom middle and right continue the sweep around the room-the door next to the stove leads to the butler's pantry.
The Kitchen. Heart of the home. Hope of my heart. I've never had a kitchen that was everything I wanted it to be-yes, that is a first-world issue, and I am completely aware of it. That said, the opportunity is here to create something functional that I will also love. It needs to have (according to my very long wish list): plenty of light; an island; a glass cooktop; plenty of storage; a baking cabinet; [marble countertops--impossible with the coffee-hounds in my family because I do not intend to bleach and scrub every day and a half]; the ability for many people to be in it at the same time, because this is where people just end up, isn't it?
High expectations. And with our budget.... well, not so easy.
First, though, the "where we started." This is the kitchen and butler's pantry--two adjoining rooms. I give the former owner a lot of credit for raising a large family using this kitchen. Here are photos from our first walk through before we bought the house. Let me just say that the photo on the top left is the built-in butler's cupboard, and it literally is what made me fall in love with the house. The top middle photo is the rest of the butler's pantry, with its newer cabinets, the huge freezer, the washer and dryer which were on the opposite wall, and the realtor showing us the place. The top right photo is the sink/radiator wall, which adjoins a wall with door into a full bath (that has two doors! one of them with a glass window!). Bottom left, you've seen this in a previous post, and bottom middle and right continue the sweep around the room-the door next to the stove leads to the butler's pantry.
What the photos don't show: under that wall the sink is on is a half-wall foundation, and the issue was that this little wall was collapsing and this whole addition to the house was slowly sinking into the sunset. When it became clear that it would need to be rebuilt, not just shored up, we thought long and hard about what to do, and decided that if we were going to have to dig a new foundation, we might as well go big or give up. We decided to expand the kitchen to include a sunroom, and take out the wall between the kitchen and butler's pantry. Cha-ching.
It took more than a year, but here are the pics from that process. The digging was scary; what was scarier was the way the back of the house was suddenly suspended over...nothing. This is the stuff you never see afterwards, the stuff that takes all the money and sucks out all the enthusiasm before you ever get to fun things like cabinets and countertops. Some photos of the excavation and setting/pouring forms:
It took more than a year, but here are the pics from that process. The digging was scary; what was scarier was the way the back of the house was suddenly suspended over...nothing. This is the stuff you never see afterwards, the stuff that takes all the money and sucks out all the enthusiasm before you ever get to fun things like cabinets and countertops. Some photos of the excavation and setting/pouring forms:
What I do not have are photos of the glee on the guys' faces as they were running big machines! Digging! Power tools!
Some more photos of the scary part. That white door is the door from the old kitchen into the bathroom-yes, the glass door somehow survived all this.
Some more photos of the scary part. That white door is the door from the old kitchen into the bathroom-yes, the glass door somehow survived all this.
So, this isn't scary.... nothing to see here. Just the second floor hanging out...on a toothpick. For a few months. If you peer very carefully at the bottom right photo, you'll see the freezer hanging out exactly where it started in the butler's pantry...
Once this was set, we could start rebuilding the kitchen. The top photos are the addition, topless and roofed. Then a couple of "inside" shots. Yes, the windows are going to be six feet tall. They match the rest of the windows on the first floor of the house. This new corner of the kitchen points southeast; you can imagine the wonderful light in there, particularly in the wintertime.
Once we got it closed up, we had windows installed and then hit a bit of a stall. Until the middle of the house is jacked up and stabilized, we can't put flooring or ceilings in to the kitchen without risking them getting knocked out of whack. So, we turned to some other work, including the clapboard project on the front of the house, as well as finishing the new carport/deck on the Carriage House (tenant's apartment). But here's some photos of the kitchen in its holding pattern over 2019. It was a fabulous place to set up worktables for painting clapboard and the beadboard for the future ceiling. Nate's Mom, Alice, is a trouper--she's game for painting anything, anytime, especially before her broken arm in September 2019. And clearly, as long as she can have coffee.
We have bought most of our appliances, and they are being stored in the Carriage House. We have purchased ready-to-assemble cabinets, which are currently in the living room. I am ready to GO, once the center of the house is stabilized. Getting that going is taking far longer than expected--I had planned to be installing a kitchen by now! Oh well.
More posts as more happens...!
More posts as more happens...!
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