Farewell, Kitchen!

When Geoff and I were house shopping, one of my 'wish-list' items was an open kitchen.  The homes in Chicago are older and so finding something that wasn't enclosed by four walls and a decent size was quite a challenge.  The kitchen in our current home was the biggest we had seen--and it had an open wall into the dining area.  Double bonus here, right?!  Unfortunately, the condition of the kitchen was not great at all, but we saw the amazing potential the space had and now we're hopeful to get this kitchen up to par!

We found a contractor, picked out our appliances, and selected the finishes.  Construction was supposed to start this week...but we're already following a typical construction track: delays!  Our contractor now can't start until next week.  The kitchen is already half-packed, so I'm trying to decide if I continue to live in boxes for the next few days, or unpack everything again...

Regardless, we are excited to say good-bye to our current kitchen with:

The tiniest oven I've ever seen.  I affectionately refer to this little guy as my "fake-n-bake" and have recently had episodes where it shuts off in the middle of baking or doesn't heat up at all.

Our leaky fridge.  Notice how the fridge is pulled out from the cabinets?  Yep, the water-line to the ice machine sprung a leak and Geoff got to rip out the soaked (and unfortunately moldy) walls in our pantry that is located in the basement right under the fridge.  He was a trooper and finished the dry-wall work and hanging the shelves before the kitchen project began.  Also, our dishwasher must have been catching on that it's getting replaced, there are times where no matter how hard we try, we can't get that little thing to turn on!

The hot glue-speckled yellowish/greenish walls.  The previous owners went with a floral theme in the kitchen and hot-glued plastic leaves all the way up the wall.  Nice, right?  The window got re-sized and replaced just yesterday--so now it's above counter height!  We also will be saying good-bye to the severely banged-up door.

Our melted knobs and scorched back splash.  Only one burner ignites without the aid of a lighter--this cook-top has definitely seen better days...

Our single-bulb light.  Yes, there is only one light-bulb in the entire kitchen.  Crazy, right?  Mom was so sweet and surprised us with an extra light above our kitchen sink which has been ever-so-helpful!

We obviously knew what we were getting ourselves into when we bought the place, so this blog post isn't a complaint, it's just a documentation of what we had.  We look forward to experiencing what is to come!

But old kitchen, I cannot lie: you will not be missed.

Here's a sneak peek into the finishes we've picked:

 We're going with dark wood cabinets, the brown tile will be the floor as well as backsplash colors, and those little baroque tiles will be details in the backsplash.  (Can't lie, I'm pretty giddy about that!)


We were super excited to find this countertop!  Can't wait to see how it looks in our kitchen!