Slade Drive House Tour - kitchen

We had a small kitchen on Slade Drive...but that is all I have ever known so it was fine for us. It connected to a tiny room with our washer/dryer and refrigerator. 

Before we moved in...

love that schoolhouse pendant light!

This was a great built in...i immediately envisioned my cookbooks on these shelves...

We thought this spot could be better arranged to feel more inviting...

The ceramic tile floors were cracking in some spots.  The previous owners told me that there was not wood under the tile, which surprised me.  Fast forward a couple of years.  I got new appliances while Sean was deployed.  Our uber-handy friend, Jay, was nice enough to come down and install the dishwasher for me.  As luck would have it, when he removed the old dishwasher, I spotted pine flooring!

Soon after that, I called Brenda, who works in construction, and asked to borrow her sledge hammer.  I went to town busting up the floor....all on a whim.  There were three levels of flooring - the ceramic tile, a subfloor and linoleum tile.  I had no clue what I was doing but just went for it.  I got 95% of the layers up, and then left the parts that were really close to the cabinets to a professional.

My 'flat daddy Sean' enjoyed a beer while I was hard at work:

layers and layers and layers, oh my!

I had someone finish the demo and refinish the floors.  I then hired some painters to repaint all the cabinets, since a lot of the paint was peeling off, for the best price EVER.  I spent days scraping layers of paint off in the laundry room, and I repainted a fresher coat of yellow.  I got so frustrated with scraping paint that I let the painters finish the kitchen for me.

Thanks to lots of help from friends - removing doors, moving appliances around, etc. I was able to get a look I was more happy with.   It was fun to have the big 'reveal' for Sean when he came home for R&R.

The afters...

We removed the vent hood and added the space saver microwave which was a big help on counter space.  One of my favorite things in the kitchen was the pull out tray in the built in cabinet (you can see it near the phone)...this was so great for spreading out cookbooks! 

During the renovation, Randy helped me remove the swinging door between the kitchen/utility room.  It felt like the space really opened up once it was taken out.

I sewed the curtain during my sewing class, and my dad built us this nice shelf to go over the washer/dryer...

And that's all we have with the kitchen, folks!

Lessons learned:
1.  I had no clue how to hang window coverings - they are a definite weakness of mine!  So, I screwed the curtain rod hardware right into the moulding around the window.  WHOOPS.  I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that until Tim and Sommer came down and saw what I had done.  I immediately knew from their faces that I had botched this!  They were very sweet and reassuring to me on my bad move.
2.  Never paint kitchen cabinets with a brush again.  I would definitely spray them next time!