This house has been a great ‘starter’ house – no big plumbing problems (except that one time that the basement flooded, but that was just because of some roots in the main drain), no leaking roof issues, no electrical problems, no nothing. The only big problem is that this house was a little… er… dumpy.

Witness the kitchen, before I moved in.

The cabinets were just fine, the stove was great, but no microwave, no dishwasher, and REALLY ugly faux tile paneling and gross pine wainscoting.  Here’s a close-up from the entryway closet.

This stuff went through the kitchen and entryway. Yuck. And even worse, the paneling (and wainscoting) was stuck directly to the bare drywall with Liquid Nails. Tearing it down was a NIGHTMARE, and repairing all the holes, divots, tears, and mess left after removing the ’tile’ in the kitchen a year ago Christmas took almost an entire week of hard work.

But it’s done. HALLELUJAH, IT IS DONE! (ok, so i still have to fix a few more pieces of trim, and there’s still a little bit of paint touch-up left in the entryway, but CLOSE ENOUGH!) So. Without further ado, here’s the kitchen!!!!

For that “before” picture above, I was standing about where the table is in this picture. I got a new refrigerator almost immediately after moving in. I LOVE the freezer drawer, and having the refrigerator part on top is nice for tall people like me! Here you can also see that I painted the walls a nice ‘mocha’ and put up new wainscoting. I love the color combination, and the nicest part is that the mocha makes most of my ‘mistakes’ and ‘wall-fixing irregularities’ less obvious. You can also get a small peek at the crown moulding that my MOST FAVORITEST brother-in-law and I put up over New Year’s. I love it!

Here’s the “dining area” – I haven’t had much time to take a lot of pictures during the lightest portions of the day, so please forgive the black hole of a window and the pulled shade. The point here is that you can really see the loveliness of the new wainscoting! The curio cabinet was made by my Grandpa, and I repainted it from powder blue to match the wainscoting and trim.  I was also able to reclaim the troll picture on the other wall there from my parents’ collection of our old junk. I think this was actually a cast-off of my sister’s, and I put it in a really old glass tray/frame.

This shows the only place in the kitchen where I left the faux tile paneling, as a backsplash of sorts. We figured that it was easier to do this than to try and take it down, because that would require taking down all the cabinets. Yuck. But really, it doesn’t look all that bad as a backsplash, and at this point, it’s easier this way. Here you can also see that I added a microwave and a dishwasher. My dad laughed when I told him that the dishwasher would change my life, but it’s totally true. It’s changed my life.

This is the back entryway and garbage/recycling area. I put in a new door here so that I could see out of the windows. Signe goes out this door, so I’ve set up a shelf and some hooks for her leashes etc. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!

And here’s the most recent finishing touch, the front entryway!  I put in new doors this summer. I wanted to be able to see out the windows, and before this, I had a door with a small frosted window. Now I get a ton more light and I can see who is out at my front door!

So. That’s the tour! It sure is a good feeling to have it almost completely finished. This just dragged on (mostly that was my fault…) and it was a hard push to the end, but now it’s done!  I love my new kitchen!