My Kitchen

As you know by now, I bought my first home last year. I bought it super cheap, as a HUD foreclosure.

Now, if you’ve ever had the luxury of viewing foreclosed homes…it’s…um…a real treat. People do awful things to a home when they are about to lose it to the bank.

One home I visited, in a nice neighborhood, had the entire kitchen ripped out! Cabinets, floors and all! The wires had been ripped from the furnace…they basically destroyed it.

One home had been used as a cat’s liter box. Most had holes in the walls. And everyone I looked at needed A LOT of work! A lot more than I thought this single woman could handle or afford.

Except the one I bought.

It was ugly! It was dated!! It had spindles and rooster wall paper borders for heaven’s sake!

But someone had once loved this home. Someone had lost their dream. And someone had respected this house.

I saw a home that mostly just needed some paint and updating. My inspector agreed. Appliances, except the fridge, were still there and working! A/C, furnace, and a newer water heater were in place. And I instantly knew this was going to be my new home!! And I knew it would be beautiful!

Here’s what I first visited:

It even had….spindles!!!

With a whole lot of paint and elbow grease and a lot of thanks to my ex-husband and his girlfriend who helped me out tremendously on the kitchen especially…I ended up with this!

 Fred (my ex) installed beadboard as a backsplash for me…something I had always dreamed of! Joanie did a good portion of the cabinet painting, and I hired a neighbor to put in new laminate floors. This was a very early on after picture (notice no range hood yet!)

I still need to paint the insides of the cabinet doors…but hey…we were on a time crunch to get moved in. :)

Since these pictures were taken, I’ve repainted the walls. Since it’s somewhat open to the living room, I needed it to flow between the two rooms. But I am still completely in LOVE with my two colored cabinets…those won’t change anytime soon.  Oh, and the dishwasher bit the dust...so I brought in Mr. Stainless Steel!  Someday all my appliances will all match...probably as each one dies off! ;)

Although there is plenty of work still to be done…especially accessorizing since the new color palette was put into place a few months ago…here are some more recent pictures:

Here is the rest of that accent wall I started showing you last week in my living room updates, it wraps around into the kitchen:

Notice the ironing board? I left that in this picture on purpose to show you where my laundry area is. The washer and dryer are right behind that orange wall! Small is an understatement. I can’t even call it a laundry ‘room’. I call it my laundry ‘area’. :) And it’s getting a makeover very soon!!

And I had to replace the gorgeous table I had JUST bought before I purchased my home because it just took up too much space in my small kitchen. So, this little number seemed to fit the bill…especially since the chairs can be tucked underneath it for even more space!  Let's be honest...it's not like I'm hosting dinner parties around here.  And I have a table outside that seats a minimum of 6 if need be (and the weathers nice).

(This is a staged photo for a project I'm going to show you soon!)

Sorry for the bad photo, it was a night time shot. And usually those curtains would be open if wasn’t dark. I always open the blinds in my house…I love to let the light in…plus the cats would plot my demise if they couldn’t see out! ;)

You will see more of this room in the, hopefully, near future. As I said, there is some serious accessorizing needed here, with pops of color to bring that beautiful copper orange onto the kitchen side of the room!  I have some plans I’m working out in my head.  And THAT'S a place you DON'T want to be! LOL

But in the mean time, be sure to come back on Wednesday. We are having a guest blogger!!!! I am SOO flippin’ excited about this, I can barely contain myself! She has a darling SMALL home with some VERY impressive…you know what…never mind…just stop by on Wednesday and you’ll see why I’m so impressed!

Until next time...