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June, 2005 4:00 p.m. — Tuesday, June 7, 2005 In preparation for refinishing our hardwood floors downstairs, we have moved everything from the dining room & living room (a.k.a. the workshop) into the kitchen & master bedroom (a.k.a. the new workshop). In doing so, we've rearranged the kitchen a bit and are again looking at that space with new eyes. Oh no, not again... For now, the "office" is in the kitchen where the built-in breakfast nook was originally planned.
Don't you just love our ultra-modern set-up? I was going for that industrial look... yeah. It's a little difficult to get the chair pulled in around all the trim and between the spackle buckets, and I'm always afraid of tipping the plywood top, but it works for now. ;) Anything that requires the use of my Florida beach mat is OK by me... ...Especially when considering the view.
Hmm, views like that make me a little LESS productive than I would like. That's our newly leveled, top-soiled, mulched, and seeded back yard. The grass is coming in pretty well and we no longer get mud pits when it rains, which is a very good thing. To the right of my desk, we've housed our kitchen table set in the new kitchen bumpout.
We weren't anticipating how much we would enjoy the table in this spot by the wall of windows, rather than in the nook we had built for it (where the "office" is currently housed, above).
Having the table here is making us second-guess the placement of our eating area... As you can see, we still have a lot of issues to work through in the kitchen. On a side note, we have just returned from a wonderful, relaxing trip to San Diego for our three-year anniversary (we were married on the same day as two other house-bloggers, coincidentally), and while we were there, I hit up some antique shops in Carlsbad. In one shop, I discovered a chrome kitchen table JUST LIKE OURS.
Except, of course, ours isn't flaming yellow. ;) And our table is in excellent condition, thanks to the hard work of its previous owners (Uncle David & Aunt Ilse via Seth), who completely restored it from top to bottom. Plus, our table comes with 5 matching padded chairs, which were also completely refinished—gotta love the chrome buttons and handles on the chairs!
So guess how much the antique shop wanted for their not-perfect, blazing yellow table sans chairs? Over $500! While I'm not sure who would pay so much for that table, it certainly makes me appreciate the quality of our set MUCH more. (See, Uncle David? All your hard work wasn't for nothing! I'm wondering if Seth will read this post and want to re-gift the set...) Moving on in our kitchen tour...
If you look closely, you can see some of my orangey wall color samples above the yellow pot and above the two-mug Gevalia coffee maker (which I highly recommend, by the way). We've come to realize we can't decide on a kitchen paint color—or flooring, for that matter—until we've decided on the color and style of our kitchen cabinets.
In continuing with the industrial look, we're using a piece of oak flooring and some shims to properly angle our drainboard towards the sink. Works like a charm! Moving on...
We've stuck some old cabinets in the middle of the kitchen to play around with the idea of an island some more. The jury's still out on this one... BUT our new fridge has finally made its way into our kitchen! (Ooooh, aaaah.) 24 hours after plugging it in, we happily switched the contents of our old fridge to our new fridge. How big and bright and CLEAN it feels! I am a little sad to see the old fridge go (you may remember my ridiculous sentimental attachment to it), and I think Goldenrod knew what was coming, because the day we decided to switch it out, it leaked water all over the plywood subfloor. Tears, perhaps...? Not really sure where the water came from, since there is no water line or icemaker hooked up to it. From what we can tell, ice accumulated on the inside of the freezer walls and then slowly leaked out on one corner. Funny how we hadn't had any problems with this super-old fridge until the day we decided to get rid of it... Currently, it's sitting in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room until we can get it hauled out to the street. In the meantime, we have a good idea of how the kitchen would feel if it was closed off to the dining room, which is also something we've been considering lately.
If we were to take out the wall between the two fridges and move the new fridge over to the right against the pantry, we'd have much more cabinet and counter space than we currently have room for now. In this plan, we'd also add a pass-through between the upper and lower cabinets where the new fridge is now, so we'd still have access to the dining room. The jury's still out on this one, too... We're very happy with the recent addition of our pantry shelving:
Currently, it holds everything BUT food...all our pots and pans and plates, etc. I'm thinking we're going to add at least one more shelf in there eventually. The foyer and stairwell are to the right of the pantry, along with the back hall and half bath. The living room is through the hallway.
Since our trim was delivered, the only way for me to get from the kitchen to the basement door (pictured above) is to go through the foyer all the way around the stairs and into the living room. Ryan is tall enough that he can just hop over ;) Well, that just about completes the tour of our temporary kitchen. I've gotta run across the street to our neighbor's house and get the number of the guy who did his hardwood floors. It's all about recommendations!
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