Five Years In the Making . . .

I thought it was probably time to share the tale of my kitchen with my devoted readers - are you nine ladies still out there? I've visited several blogs lately where there are truly amazing kitchen transformations (specifically here and here) and while mine isn't quite as drastic - or fantastic - it has been an ongoing project for the past five years we've lived in this house and is kinda dear to my heart.

You see, the Hubby (bless his dear soul) bought this house without me ever seeing it. I know. I know. He will NEVER do that again. I was eight months pregnant, living as a single parent with the other two kiddoes in another state while he worked here and slept on a guest bed in my parents house. We had already been separated for three months.

So the sweet Hubby spent 10 minutes in this house, and pressured by offers from two other families, decided that it was THE ONE and that we needed to make a better offer. His reassurance to me was "besides a little painting, this house is move in ready". That statement came directly from the mouth of a man who'd spent most of his ten minutes admiring the wonderful back yard with its intricate deck, gazebo and stately age-old trees. That statement did not come from a man who'd looked carefully through the actual house. Combine those details with the fact that we were moving from a house we'd had built from the ground up- to our every specification, need and whim - and you can understand my reaction when I saw this house for the first time, got in the car and burst out crying.

Every room had wall paper or sponge painting or hideous murals. In the kitchen and dining area there was no hard wood flooring, only linoleum and carpet that a dog had loved too much. The kitchen was a mishmash of mixed counter tops and tiny cupboards in "builders basic" oaky stain and had a very 80's grapevine wallpaper border. It was not a pretty kitchen. At all. (see for yourself in this picture on demolition day one - look at how little Big C was then!)

On the day we took possession of the house (exactly two weeks after the birth of RedDog), we said goodbye to the previous owners and immediately began tearing up flooring and removing wallpaper with the help of the Queen Vee who is a mighty demolition queen. In the months and years that have followed, we have put in hardwood floors, removed all wallpaper and repainted, painted the bottom cupboards and put in all new upper cupboards from Ikea after first removing the soffits, covered the island in beadboard, replaced the lame stove, added shelves above the sink windows, removed the useless desk and put in a bay of storage drawers, tiled the back splash, replaced the counter tops, replaced the ugly chandelier and put in a new sink.

Here is a picture of the kitchen today, with Big C who has grown so much in 5 years! And I've included a little slide show highlighting some of my favorite things about my kitchen, which is finally what I've always wanted: LIGHT AND AIRY! Insert the Hubby saying is that even a real term?

He deserves 80% of the credit for the work done in this kitchen and I love him dearly for letting me cry about it as it was, and then letting me make it as I envisioned it could be.