A Kitchen Reno in Progress

This was the original kitchen as we moved in.(previous owner still in residence). Note there are no counters or cupboards. The sink is original.

The little "pantry" at the back was cut out from a cold room. Note sagging ceiling because there was no support. (picture when previous owners still in residence).

As soon as we moved in we created a temporary kitchen. We hand built a counter and some pretty crude cupboards. We had to build a "jutt"" in the counter to wrap around the window that was about a foot lower than the lower cupboards. Note back door.

This is from the opposite angle. The walls were very rough - especially after we pulled out the wall - mounted sink. We used panels of RetroArt to hide the damage because they were flexible. They also look like tin panels that have been painted. Easy to install too.

Our temporary kitchen lasted five years. Time for a new one. This was my "colour board". The background panel was painted the yellow colour I wanted the cupboards to be. (looks whitish here)

Here the little pantry has been gutted out. I kind of miss the top of the counter. It was made of tin and worked great for making pie crusts. But I don't miss the narrow cupboards.

This is the original exterior. The windows in the porch have all been removed at this point. The little shed to the left was used as a potting shed. It was made in the 1950's for storing kids' bikes.

They're all gone now- the porch, the pantry and the potting shed. The facade is flat. You can still see the foundation of the pantry on the right. Last fall we pulled out the deck and now even the stairs are gone. Time to start building!

The crawl space has been constructed and insulated. Now the walls are going up. That's Dave on the left and Jerry on the right - our contractors. They were wonderful to work with.

Here is the view looking out from the addition. The windows are larger so we can now see the back yard. Next time I will pick windows that are longer.

At the same time as the addition is being built we are building the deck. It's a wrap around deck but an uncovered one. We saved money by building this ourselves. It's a great spot for entertaining now. (see pictures of the garden else where on this site)

This picture is facing east - the same as when looking out towards the little pantry. You can see the beam above that shows the where the addition started and the difference in the 9 ft and 8 ft ceilings. We had to go to 8 feet because of the pitch of the shed roof.

The height of the foundation walls and the center of the house was almost two inches different. This was Jerry's solution and attempt to even the floors. It was painstaking, and fiddly work.

This shows the new shorter window above the cupboards. I love the yellow of the cupboards. Park Cabinets from Sherwood Park did the work. No counters yet, and we still have our old stove in this picture... but it's coming!

And here we are, facing east. We painted the beam above to tie into the colour of the walls. The Arts and Crafts door works well. The stainless steel appliances don't stand out as much as I feared - mostly because of the colour of the counters and the grey floor strip around them.

This is the view from the dining room into the kitchen before we put in the subway tile (which again we did ourselves to save money). You can see that the colours flow well between the rooms because they are a repetition of colours throughout the house & deck.

We finally have a kitchen nook - a place to sit and look out onto the back yard. We got triple paned Eco glass which keeps the sun from heating the room and the warmth from going outside. The antique light is from the late 20's - a bit younger than the house.

Here's a closeup of the hallway. One of my favorite features about the room is the small but efficient walk in pantry seen behind the stove on this picture. It holds larger items, canned and packaged goods and recycling containers. I also love our new dual fuel stove.

Another view. Here you see the glass doors and the counter. It's a Corian counter that resembles soapstone albeit with a more subtle pattern. The grout in the tiles picks up the colour of the counter. The cupboards are painted maple.

A final picture. On the right hand side of the photo you can barely see the "china cupboard" that is a close match to the table and chairs. It's the same cupboards as the yellow ones but in a wood stain so that it looks more like a china cabinet - great for cookbooks and dishes!