The Wright Place: Eleventy Hundred Pictures and a Couple of Words About a Kitchen

"How's your kitchen coming?"

Beautifully, thank you so much for being brave enough to ask. I'm much like a grandma with a new grandchild, would you like to see some pictures?

OK then...here we go.

I sorted through a picture or two from years past to see if I could find some decent "before" action pictures. I found a few {cue music...'Memories......'}

Ah, old kitchen...we had fun, but you flooded, so ...

...we invited Papaw to come up and the guy at Lowe's told us that

the fridge would work better in a different place ...

...and you only had two burners and ...

...your microwave was IN THE SIDE of the island?!

What was up with that oven which was perfect for a doll house but not a full sized house with a bunch of kids and a grown man and a crazy woman trying to feed them.

Let's face it old gal, YOU HAD SERIOUS ISSUES...ok, so do I but YOURS were fixable.

We tried to tell the Lowe's kitchen designer that the fridge would be a disaster on the other side of the room. He asked us to consider it and we are so very glad that we did! It made our large room feel like all kitchen instead of kitchen-plus-Gretchen's-messy-desk-area like it did before.

Once the fridge was relocated, it was possible for a cabinet and counter top to replace it.

{before}

{after}

The doll house oven has been replaced by a normal sized stove. We are still getting used to the idea that we can cook more than one pan of food at a time.

{before}

{after}

The microwave has gotten a raise.

Now we can heat things without having to do squats.

In addition to the space gained by moving the fridge across the room, we added a crazy amount of useable square feet by replacing the homemade white cabinets, as deep as my fully extended arm, with traditional standard-sized cabinets. The corner in front of Molly in the picture below was built out away from the kitchen wall a foot or so leaving a hole behind the cabinet wall that was empty and unusable.

It's all better now.

The island with it's microwave and it's stovetop and its single drawer is gone and has been replaced with a plain topped island with scads of storage.

We've circled the room now and find ourselves in the neighborhood of the dishwasher which replaced the dishwasher that made all of this renovation ~~possible~~ necessary ;-).

The new dishwasher and I have had a big talk about how one should behave in the winter and I feel we have come to a healthy understanding... I will do my best to keep it shiny, I will give it lots of attention and more than enough work to do and, in return, it will keep all of its hoses enact and drip free and it will under NO CIRCUMSTANCES burble, bust, burst or, in any other fashion ruin this kitchen.

It was a good talk.

And finally...here is where I'm sitting as I type...

...actually, I'm sitting in a dining room chair at my desk because of the barstool and desk chair situation. The situation is that there are none or neither or there aren't any. We have hauled three different sets of four barstools into this room and all I can say thus far is that I'm as good at choosing bar stools as I am paint colors which is abysmal!

The first thing I did when I ~~sat~~ stood here for the first time was to order a cookbook I'd been waiting all renovation long to purchase as sort of a prize I guess. Really, though, why in the world would I need anything else besides this...

I still can't believe it's our kitchen.

It still seems like somebody else's kitchen which is a good thing because as I'm sure you've already discovered, it's always more fun cleaning someone else's kitchen!

There's still paint to be painted and a few little items to be seen to, but we are 87% finished I think and our little world is settling back into its regular rhythms. The kids have begun once more to take over the island during our school hours ...

I'm back to Sunday breakfasts ...

...and making messes.

Meg's been baking cakes, Cole has been making nachos and is heavily hinting about reinstating burrito night. Kate flits and frolics in the much more open spaces between the island and the countertops and Molly, she is glad to have her "wake up" place back...