Oliver’s Bungalow Blog

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House Tour: Kitchen After

Christine

I took these pictures early one Saturday morning, before I got the kitchen really messy again with cooking for a crowd.

We did so much to this kitchen, I hardly know where to start.

I’ll just do a quick run down, details to follow.

New:

plaster
garden window
beadboard walls
crown molding and plate rail
structural support beam
lighting, general and task
door and window trim
knobs, pulls, hinges
counter
sink and faucet
dishwasher
range hood

Nearly New:

fridge (one year)
stove (three years)

Revitalized:

cabinets
wood floor


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House Tour: Kitchen Under Construction

Christine

Kitchen in progress…
The new garden window; a view from outside.
Evidence of a window to the back porch. Vinyl floor torn out, ceiling tiles gone.
The plethora of wall surfaces we encountered. Notice the pink peeking out before the last couple of runs of beadboard were installed? That was sparkly linoleum.
Newly covered with beadboard.
The loss of lower cabinets for the sake of a dishwasher- well worth it. And the loss of upper cabinets because of a necessary new structural support beam- not really missed.

New blueboard with plaster skim-coat. New structural support beam. New recessed lighting. New crown molding and plate rail.
Another upper cabinet gone. Not a loss, really. It was impossible to reach without a ladder, an awkward size, and it made an already tight spot even more claustrophobic. (The cabinet was above the doorway to the entry- the one on the left. The doorway on the right is to the dining room.
The never ending tower of drawers waiting to be sanded, primed, and painted.
More to come…
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House Tour: Kitchen Before

Christine

The kitchen in September 2003…
While the kitchen had a lot of cosmetic issues, it had one good thing going for it: all those cabinets.

Now, I don’t think they are original to the house, but I suspect they date to the 1950s. The hardware that was there was that black stuff often seen between the 50s to the 70s, which wouldn’t have been so bad, but at some point someone decided it would all look better if spray painted gold. But then the gold started to rub off and you could see the black again. Nice.

Then there is the “trailer window”. It was placed too high for me to see out of, didn’t open for ventilation, and didn’t let much light in. I would hate to think this was original, I sort of doubt it, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

Speaking of the lightning, there were only two light sources in this kitchen: the fancy swag light, not placed near any work surface, and the scary flourescent tube above the sink, with its brittle cord you had to plug in to turn on. The previous owners left all of the kitchen appliances. The fridge, which is on its last legs, the electric stove, which was in full working order, the gas stove, which had never been used (did I mention they had a fear of losing electricity?), and the roll away dishwasher. I did appreciate the dishwasher, but it really made for a crowded workspace with all these extra appliances.

Also, please note the lovely laminate counter and walls. They had streaks of “gold”. That must have inspired the repainting of the knobs and hinges. While we are talking about the surface coverings, don’t you just love the 1970s paneling on the walls? And the ceiling tiles? How about the vinyl flooring, with the rectangular cut right in the middle? Really special.

I took great pleasure in tearing the flooring out myself. The ceiling tiles came down after we realized the intake water supply to the upstairs toilet was leaking. Right onto the kitchen counter, right about where the green fan is sitting.

Have I mentioned how much the previous owners liked shelves?

And there is a good shot of that swag fixture, casting more light than it did in real life.
The door way above leads to the back porch room, now known as Oliver’s room.

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Oli in the Dining Room

Christine

Someone pointed out that Oliver was not in any of the Dining Room after pictures. So here he is, under the dining table.
You see, Oli doesn’t hang out in the dining room too often, unless there is food involved, of course. He is usually very good, he doesn’t pest or beg, he simply makes himself available, should any food spontaneously jump off the table.

On a house-related note, I have been having trouble with the legs of this dining table. It belonged to my grandmother (like most of the furniture), and we had to disassemble it for a few years while it was stored at my mother’s house.

There are two of these legs, with three curved legs off the main trunk. The problem seems to be where the pieces meet, they are separating from the weight of the table. Now I know that one has been loose most of my life (I used to play under that table at grandma’s as a child: the way the legs fit together made good room divisions for Barbie’s house- I liked arranging the furniture best). The other five curved legs seem to have come loose recently, possibly from the change in temperature, humidity, etc. when it was moved from grandma’s to mom’s house.

I had Jack, my favourite wood restorer, look at it right before Christmas last year. He took it all apart, re-glued and reinforced the pegs. I let it set twice as long as Jack said I needed to, just to be on the safe side. Now, these joints seem to be getting loose again, making the whole table wobbly. Just in time for Christmas dinner.

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House Tour: Dining Room After

Christine

And now, today…
The walls are painted a very soft shade of spun pink. I wish the color was a bit more obvious, but I was afraid to go much darker. In a room this size that had the potential to be too much pink. I just wanted a blush of pink to set off the couple pieces of pink depression glass from my great-grandfather Norman.
I think I still need more stuff on the walls, but it comes slowly. Almost everything is a hand-me-down, mostly from my grandmother.
Now the dining room wall is returned to its original location, and that puts the whole room back in proportion. That makes me so happy.
Both sets of French doors have been stripped of their paint (one set still hanging on the wall they moved, was a dingy white, the other set found in the basement, had been painted half mint green, half liliac), and re-hung.
Now, two small radiators, evenly spaced, make for a much better look. Plus the large one used to be partly in the window bump-out, and I was just never comfortable with that. The floor does slope down there.