Small Difficult Kitchen to Dream Kitchen

Our kitchen was small. Like apartment size small. Like smaller than kitchens from past apartments. We had about six square feet of counter space. We had only one drawer. One! We had 7 small cabinets. Our kitchen table barely fit. If you opened the fridge door, the dishwasher door, and the oven door at the same time they probably all touched. There was an awkward book shelf divider thing with weird jail cell like posts between the kitchen and the living room. At the rear of the kitchen (as in about five feet from the living room) you had to step down a level into the "mud room," which was also awkward and only held our washer, dryer, and generic pantry cabinet.

Move in day in 2008

just enough room for a small kitchen table. Boring paint color. 

Proof you could fit five people in the kitchen, but also proof that it was too small!

We couldn't wait to redo the kitchen. Our goal was to enlarge the kitchen a bit and to use the space as efficiently as possible. We wanted to maximize storage, have room for an island, and I insisted upon having a kitchen nook as our table (against the desires and recommendation of our architect!). We hoped to incorporate a beverage center, have a separate laundry area, and include a nicely sized and efficient pantry.

Planning the kitchen was the best part of the whole remodel!

The beverage center. Just missing the wine coolers down below (and finish paint & electrical here). Also, the lighting is so off here. The counter tops are grey, not black.

Back when we had our old stove & no trim in the house.

Doors to the hidden walk in pantry and laundry areas

My little kitchen nook dream come true

View from the living room. Notice wine cooler turned car garage space! 

View from our master bedroom. Truly the kitchen of our dreams with just a few more projects left.

Another view from the front door.

Love my sink, but not loving the "kosher" dishwasher.

Again. Love the farmer's sink. A.k.a. apron sink.

Of course these hooks never look this clean, but they do serve their purpose.

We have so much counter space! We absolutely are loving it. We still have a few things to finish in here, like adding wine coolers and trimming out around our microwave, but it is looking pretty darn good compared to the teeny kitchen we started with. The best part is that we didn't even add too much extra square footage from the beginning. We raised the old mud room floor to be level and bumped out the nook, pantry, and laundry areas and that was it. This kitchen makes the term spoiled rotten not sound so bad.