The kitchen

This is what our kitchen looks like these days. It took about four months worth of weekends and a whole week in December during the holidays to get it to look like this. We ripped out hideous countertops and replaced them with Ikea butcher block ones; we took out the lower cabinets and put in place unfinished, off-the-rack oak ones from Lowe's (which we painted); we put in a new farmhouse sink (ebay), faucet (ditto), and appliances (Craigslist, friend's cast-off, Lowe's). For the upper cabinets, we either took out doors and added period details with moldings, brackets and trim, covered some of the remaining glass doors with pretty fabric, or painted the fronts with chalkboard paint.














Ah, yes - we added beadboard...

...and some old tin tile behind the sink as backsplash.


















We continued the beadboard around the fridge wall and into the breakfast nook we created by adding a built-in bench, a vintage chandelier I painted with some leftover blue-gray paint, an old beveled mirror and the Docksta table from Ikea.

The view from the dining room. We got the farm table for a song at a local antique/junk store (the kind of place just over the train tracks, ran by a guy who is only open on Saturdays and who only takes cash). The table was buried underneath piles of stuff, stacked almost to the ceiling. It needed to be refinished, but other than that it was sturdy and, well, just what I'd been looking for. Needless to say, it is perfect in every way.