Kitchen

The kitchen is a decent size. But I think everything is pretty much ORIGINAL, which means it is outdated. The one good thing is the wood flooring. I was actually very surprise.

Here is the before picture.

After living with it for 6 months now, I have a better idea of a progressive renovation would look like. At the beginning, we didn’t know how much it would cost to redo the kitchen. Needless to say, it would cost both of our arms and legs to get my dream kitchen. So we pretty much put it on hold when we moved in. We repainted it to match the dining room as it flows into each other. I have no idea what the previous owner was trying to achieve!!! The faucet was broken so it was a must do to move in. So is half of the vent, as I discovered just a month ago. It started to make really bad noise.

The garbage compactor needs to go when we replace the wood floor in the near future, as some “bright” contractor put the unit in before the floor and the countertop. So there is no way to remove it now. It simply does not work and no one can find replacement parts anymore. The double oven looks relatively new, but it is smaller than the standard one in a standard ranch unit, so my baking sheets are too wide for them, meaning I need to get some new ones before Christmas baking comes around.

The cook top has 6 burners, and thank goodness, they are pretty high in BTU, probably not like the brand new ones, but certainly way better than what I had in Irvine….

The only appliance we needed to buy is a refrigerator. There isn’t a slot for a microwave, so Tom’s 3 legged microwave is sitting on a counter top next to the fridge. Oh, we also would need to replace the ceiling fan in the nook area, as it doesn’t turn anymore. But since the temperature is relatively cool most of the time, we don’t need it for now.

This is the after picture. I took it just before our house warming party so you see all the alcohols are out. They are not usually there….haha. And the side table with the flower in front of the window is also just a party component.

As I said, there isn’t sufficient cabinet space here. My cookbooks are in the brown temp bookcase until I figure out what to do there. Probably just need to paint the bookcase white so it wouldn’t stand out so ugly!

This is the wall behind the mirror in the dining room. I added my African baskets on the wall, and use the corner for a small wine rack. Basically, this is where we dump our keys and phones for recharging each day.

This is the view from the dining room into the kitchen.