Our Temporary Kitchen Renovation

Since most of Pam's activities revolve around the kitchen area we determined that we would need to do something fast to correct this nasty and forgotten area of ​​the house. With that thought in mind the kitchen was designated as the next priority. As you can see from the before photos this area had some serious problems, actually more than we were aware of. Our immediate concern was to establish some sort of functionality in the room. We first thought despite we would renovate the kitchen first before the living room but I wanted to see some progress being made and chose the less of the evils. Who knows it is likely that the kitchen will undergo a number of transformations in the future.

We started with a couple of coat of fresh paint on the walls and woodwork. This helped a lot. It is amazing what a little paint can accomplish for a room. We carefully looked at all the kitchen appliances (stove and dishwasher were the only appliances in the home) and decided that the filth was too much. I went out and purchased a new dishwasher and stove for Pam. We still had our refrigerator so we put that in place. Even a good scrubbing could not help those appliances that were in the home.

It was almost too fearful to start taking pictures of our new home. From one room to the next all we see was vast amounts of filth. Nasty surroundings greeted us at every corner of the home however during our pre-cleaning phase when all we were doing is taking pictures I thought I would break the rooms down one by one. I must warn everyone this house is the leader in the "Cult of the Filth" so have your life insurance paid as you view these pictures. You can see the before images of the filthy kitchen which we recently encountered. First notice the unclean stove ready to haunt anyone entering the kitchen. Who would ever want to cook a meal on that? The refrigerator was not working so that was sent to the salvage yard for scrape (as was the unclean stove). Glance with caution at the image showing behind the stove as it looks like it has not been cleaned for many long years.

You will notice that there were many floor tiles in the kitchen that will need to be replaced. It is obvious that the previous occupant was not very clean and failed to maintain the house to standards.

The light and fan assemblies that were in the kitchen / dining room combination were in pretty bad condition and we decided to replace them with just a ceiling light. The fan in the dining area would hit the door of the cabinet when it was opened. The lights served much better for us.

We placed our refrigerator where the previous tenets frig was located and since it had a water supply line already run for the ice maker was was very convenient for us. Pam took a small cabinet that she had and placed it in the middle of the floor to use as an island for working on. This also is merely a temporary condition. The dining room area has the table and four chairs in it while her china cabinet had to be placed essentially in the kitchen. The counters at the breakfast bar cleaned up real good and once Pam put some of her items on it the area began to take on a new and exciting life of its own.

The French doors leading from the kitchen / dining room to the rear deck are in bad shape and will need to be replaced in the future. In the mean time at some point in the future we will be adding on a formal dining room for Pam but that will be later in time. Pam put some curtains up to the windows and it does not look too bad. The floor was in such bad shape that we had to place a piece of wood over a section of it. Over the wood Pam put a carpet runner and it does not look bad at all. It will do until we have the time and funds to redo the complete kitchen / dining area floor. At least now we have a complete kitchen and Pam can now unpack the rest of her kitchen boxes.

Those happy thoughts are racing through my mind, "Here come the homemade breads!"