The New House-Kitchen/Dining Room

Okay so not exactly a week after but hey, I'm trying! Onto the second room reveal of our new house. Again, it's not a shocking before and after or anything as we haven't (yet) done any major renovations in the kitchen/dining room. I think it still looks much better after we removed the popcorn ceilings, added a light fixture over the dining table and of course, painted everything white. The other thing that I think made a huge difference in modernizing the space was throwing out those hideous bar stools. Don't worry I didn't really throw them out. I sold them on Kijiji, so they are hopefully happy in their new home and perhaps reminiscing about the good old days when it was acceptable to sponge paint every surface in your house. The new bar stools were a major score from a consignment store here in Ottawa. Here's a before and after of the kitchen/dining area from the real estate listing versus today:

It's looking a little less late 80s, early 90s, right? We still have big plans for the kitchen which you can see HERE. Phase one will be: paint the cabinets, new cabinet hardware, new back countertop and a new floor. Phase two will be to completely gut and redo the kitchen... someday. I'm not sure how the people before ever used the dining area as there was not a single source of light other then from the kitchen pot-lights. Maybe they liked eating in the dark? 

In terms of layout and functionality I'm really enjoying the space. There is a huge amount of storage and it has all sorts of built-in drawer accessories like pull-out shelves and in-drawer organizers. I still have a few empty cabinets which is quite a luxury. The only thing I'm not crazy about is having a vent hood floating over the island. I've hit my head on it a few times and when we have people over it blocks anyone standing on the kitchen side of it. When we re-do the kitchen someday, it's something I may think of relocating. I do love having an island and I love our built-in fridge. I also love having built-in garbage drawers so you don't have to have garbage/recycling sitting out. Something to definitely keep in mind if you're redoing/planning your kitchen. 

Our mini-oven isn't turning out to be a problem because it's not like I'm cooking a turkey every day and the oven has all sorts of custom oven trays to fit it perfectly. Chad re-jigged the microwave opening and made ours look built-in as well.

In the corner near the bay window there was a weird little granite remnant telephone table floating on the wall that we got rid of. Chad is in the process of building us a table but our old little round table is a nice placeholder for now. 

On the wall in the dining room side there use to be a full tv cabinet. I wanted to remove the entire thing but it turns out they didn't finish the flooring underneath it. It's a bit wide to be a real buffet but again it's a good placeholder until we re-do the entire kitchen including the floors. Here's a view of the kitchen while we were still in "Dexter mode" removing the popcorn ceiling. You can see the how imposing the old built-in cabinet was and also get a glimpse of the weird floating shelf in the corner.

Again, I've reused mostly everything from our last house. The mint cabinet and bar cart along with the large artwork I made for the black feature wall have all been reworked into this space. The black drum shade is from Ikea and has a copper interior which gives a nice glow and ties into the other copper pieces in the house.

My good old Ikea striped rug is still hanging on despite numerous attempts by the cats to try and destroy it. A good wool rug can withstanding anything. I also use a lot of Bissell spot lifter carpet cleaner. No one has asked me to say this-obviously-but THIS product is the best and seriously gets everything out. 

A few people have mentioned that our kitchen doesn't look THAT bad. It isn't, really, until you get up close. The back countertops and back splash look like they were sponge painted. The crappy laminate countertop also took a beating when they installed a new dishwasher. There are also some weird stains that are permanently etched into the countertop. See not dirt just a mystery stain!

I took another close up picture so you can also see the metal edging around all the cabinets. I think this must have been the height of chic in the early 90s. I also cannot wait to change out the back splash tile. I've never wanted a simple white subway tile more. The one plus is that all the sponge paint-y-ness really hides crumbs and dirt. 

I can't leave you with a picture looking at this, so one more view towards the dining room. I'll show you the master bedroom and the world's ugliest master bathroom next.