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Like most UK kitchens, I have a washing machine. The door to the right used was a small cupboard which used to hold a small dryer. But I now have an all-in-one washer-dryer machine, and a small dishwasher where the dryer was. I don't think I have ever loved a domestic appliance as much as I love my dishwasher.
I have a small under-the-counter fridge with a tiny freezer compartment. I took the decision not to have a big fridge-freezer because (a) the kitchen's really too small for it and (b) I knew if I had a bigger freezer it'd be stuffed with pizza, ice cream, french fries, etc. A small fridge encourages me to eat fresh food.
See the window in the second picture? That is now an archway into a dining nook. Under construction. MOAR KITCHEN. That far (Hershey's Sign) wall will be empty except for a small high table with some stools, so I can sit and armchair cook while the husband makes with the yummies.
Rainbaby: love the table set! I could use something similar for my mid-century (1954) kitchen.
I don't have any after photos, but here's the before shot form about 5 years ago. We've replaced the appliances (yes, that is a dishwasher from 1954, and yes it worked, albeit LOUDLY) and counters, but kept the cabinets: ≡ Click to see image ≡
We took out the linoleum and had the pine subfloor refinished, though it's usually pretty well obscured: ≡ Click to see image ≡
Thanks fogovonslack, the house is 1952. Awesome little houses were built in the 50's. The table is going upstairs and we found old restaurant booth seats for the new dining place!
I'm having serious kitchen envy. I LOVe your kitchen, rainbaby! And danf, yours looks super cozy, too.
As for gas - can you not get a propane tank? At my last house, we couldn't have a gas line, but we had a propane stove. One thing I miss about it is that it cooked hotter than my present gas stove. I don't know whether that was because the gas lines were larger, the burners were better, or propane maybe just burns hotter than natural gas, but I actually noticed that it takes a few minutes longer to boil a big pot of water or soup, and it's harder to get things up to a rolling boil. /tangent
fancyoats, you have excellent color sense and I love your kitchen! You will see why.
Okay, I have created a small tour. I cleaned up for this, believe it or not. There are many pictures but not because my kitchen is large. My kingdom for a wide angle lens!
We will begin with a blurry shot of the fridge with the sink in the background. ≡ Click to see image ≡
Here is a closer view of that one corner by the sink including the china cabinet above. The orange flowerpot is not usually there; it's waiting for me to get around to repotting something else. ≡ Click to see image ≡
Going right on around the room, skipping the stove and the annoying tall narrow cabinet on which the door is currently broken and the door to the porch, we come to these shelves. ≡ Click to see image ≡
On to the kitchen table! Why yes, that is cat food. It's the only place where the dogs won't immediately polish it off, so Okra eats with us. ≡ Click to see image ≡
Now turn all the way around, more or less, to see the other counter. That is our brand new toaster oven, which we all loathe. Black & Decker should have stuck to making tools. ≡ Click to see image ≡
And this is what the whole shebang looks like from the front door, because about the first thing I did when I moved into my house was cut that big window in the wall. ≡ Click to see image ≡
We have a two-flat in Madison, Wisconsin. We lived in the lower flat for 11 years and refinished the entire thing (it was a bit abused when we bought it). It was right on the isthmus so it was a very fun place to live. All of my friends tended to meet at our house before going to do things. Every so often, we'd give ourselves time in between tenants to work on the upstairs apartment and also throw great parties (great because it was a big empty space with room to crash if you drank too much).
Here's the downstairs kitchen in the middle of the remodel:
The upstairs apartment had the same kitchen with the same linoleum, except instead of being green, it was the most frightening combination of red, orange and yellow. It *hurt* to look at it. Especially as both apartments had matching-to-its-floor linoleum countertops rimmed in aluminum.
Those kitchens were pretty small but well-thought out and efficient.
The only picture I have of our Portland kitchen is one that has my friend's dippy-ex-boyfriend in it, pretending to stir something to help us prepare for a party. I'm standing in what used to be a breakfast nook, and I'll always be sad they removed the nook and left a big open space. They covered the beautiful oak floors with plastic pergo when they tore out the nook, and we often talk about returning it to its original condition.
Only changes we've really made so far have been to replace the electric stove with gas. I LOVE my oven. LOVE it. We want to paint, as my partner hates the peachy flesh color, but I don't mind it so it's pretty low on my list of things to do. You can't see it, but the walls still have their original 20s rounded corners, so cool.
Bonus shot:
When we moved to Portland, we had a super crazy landlord from hell who was chopping up a really beautifully refinished bungalow into a duplex. Just as we were leaving (thankfully), she announced that we would get the downstairs (formerly our family room and guestroom) tenant's mail and have to deliver it to him through a mailslot she installed in our kitchen.
I can't tell you how happy I was to move away from her craziness (the next tenant told me the landlord installed a bathroom at the top of the stairs with no walls. You could sit in the living room on the couch and watch someone go. Cray-zee.)
Love this! Although my kitchen is pretty dull compared to everyone's colorful ones. This shot shows pretty much all the counterspace. I realize I've got even more crap there than I admitted to in the previous thread...
-t, yeah. It was very strange. We called the postmaster about the indoor mailslot and he said it was legal (maybe for the mail, but I suspect the city would have had something to say about unlicensed contractors doing the work and probably also would have wanted the extra taxes for a duplex over a single family). One of the other really bizarre things she did was move the electrical box with the fuses outside on the side of the house. It had no lock on it. Every time I walk by that house, I think about casually turning off all of their electricity because I think it'd be funny to do so. I won't, but I could.
Also, underslept by a lot. it's from above is supposed to be its!! grrr.
So fun to read this thread. Hoping serious case of guilt from taking but not uploading pictures yet will result in actually getting it done after I get home from work today.
This is such a fun thread to read! Mygothlaundry, I love your doorless cabinets.
-t and I live in a teeny tiny bungalow built in 1908, but the kitchen is fully a third of the footprint of the house. It was re-done just before we got here, and while it's not exactly what we'd have done ourselves, it is new and clean and *huge*, which is a crazy luxury neither of us have ever had before. We cook often and hard, and we treat the kitchen like a commercial space - we clean down at the end of every night, put everything behind doors, etc.
The east side of the kitchen - oh god do we hate that stove. I would rather have an old-school coil than the flat top if we must have electric...the heat cycles on and off, it scratches if you look at it wrong, GRAR. Cookbooks, spices/coffee/tea, and appliances fill the cabinets on this side.
The south side. I do love that big, deep sink and our stone countertops that we can just wipe down at the end of the night. The little island in the center *seems* useless - it's a weird size and place - but it's great for corralling floury operations in one place. Wine and water glasses and dinnerware behind cabinets on this side. Rack 1 holds cooling bread and baked goods, some serving dishes, and the herbs we're trying to nurse through the winter. In a month I'll have seedlings going under the lights.
I remember a thread a while back where someone posted pictures of their *amazing* kitchen refit, which ended up really modern and beautiful, with, I recall, a series of pendant lamps over the counter. Walls were taken out and the whole space turned around.
Whose kitchen was this? Anyone remember? Was it yours?
peachfuzz, I'll trade. I hate my open cabinets. Everything in them gets filthy so fast - things that aren't used every day are just coated in grime. Whenever I have people over for a glass of wine I have to wash the glasses first because they're so grotty from sitting out in the open for a few weeks. It turns out that cabinet doors in a kitchen have a reason for being!
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
