March 5, 2010

My kitchen

I was looking through old video last week and found a clip of me giving a tour of our apartment when Kyle and I had been married for only 4 or 5 months. I should really post that here sometime. Wouldn't that be amusing? Anyway, I loved seeing it and remembering what it was like living there.

Then the next day, I found pictures of our house from the first year that we moved in (2005). It was interesting to see how we had furniture arranged, the different decorations that we had up that I had completely forgotten about. Just a few little things brought all sorts of memories.

SO, I decided that I'm going to take some pictures of our house and post them here . . . complete with descriptions and explanations. So, this might be a little boring for you and I give you the okay to skip this post.

A couple of notes/realizations:
  • I did this on a whim (which is why the pictures aren't that great) and took zero time to clean up. This is really how you would find my kitchen on any average day. But if you came over for dinner, it would be much cleaner.
  • I need more color in my kitchen.
This is the dining area as seen from the kitchen (it's all pretty much one room). Some people refer to it as a "breakfast nook" but it's the only dining area we have, so we eat a lot more than breakfast there. The kitchen/dining room is one of the main things I loved about the house when we saw it for the first time. I was able to overlook the smaller living room and master bedroom because I liked this space and could picture us living in it.


We've been living here five years and I still have no window treatments for this room. Originally, it was because of the expense . . . the windows are all odd sizes and they'd all have to be custom. But now I'm just not sure what to do. I don't want to do anything that would detract from the "openness" that the windows bring to the space. I'm sure our neighbors see a lot more of us than they'd like, though. We're really fortunate, because two of the three properties adjacent to ours are vacation homes and we only see people at them a couple of times a year.

The kitchen table is pub height and kind of has a "plank" look to it . . . I'm not sure if that's how you'd describe it, but it's the only way I know how. I take a lot of my pictures on this table, so you might have seen it before.

When we got it, everyone commented on how great it would be that we wouldn't have to worry about our kids scratching up our table because it already looked scratched, dented and rustic. What no one really thought about was that food, playdough and everything else gets stuck in the little cracks and it's nearly impossible to clean.

The chairs are from Target and my friend, Heather, and I put them together during the summer that she lived with us. Let's just say that they weren't put together very well. A few of them are pretty wobbly and some of them have random bolts sticking out of the bottom. I'm pretty sure we'll have to replace them in the next year or two. We're lucky they've lasted this long! Also, two of them were gnawed on by Murphy back when she was a puppy.

Kyle's parents gave us money to buy the light fixture above the table from IKEA. I love it. On the table are two star shaped bowls from Pottery Barn, filled with cinnamon scented pine cones and fake apples. During the spring/summer they usually have fake lemons and limes in them.

Jack hates to sit in his high chair, but we keep it out for when we have Spaghetti, any sort of soup, or anything else messy enough to warrant it. Ben has a high chair that straps to one of the chairs.


This is the kitchen as seen from the dining area.

The racks on the walls under the cupboards hold paper towel, many different colored spatulas, wooden spoons, coffee supplies and pot holder. Under the rack is a cutting block used only for cutting bread. Everything else gets cut on a plastic, dishwasher safe cutting mat. The crock pot isn't normally out on the counter, but on this particular day, I believe we were making Parma Rosa Chicken (which was delicious, by the way).

The shelves above the sink have flour, sugar, cookbooks, pez dispensers (a.k.a. Jack's potty rewards) and other various items. You can usually find my wedding rings there, too, because I'll often take them off and put them up there if I'm cooking something that gets my hands messy.

If I was able to change ONE thing about my kitchen, it would be to have a gas stove. That was almost a deal breaker for me when we were looking at houses, but Kyle was excited about having an easy-to-clean flat top stove so I settled. It's so much harder to cook on an electric range.

The laptop sits on the counter and feeds me recipes, allows me to stay up to date with what everyone's doing on facebook, and let's me tweet what we're doing throughout the day. I do quite a bit of business from this station in between ben's dirty diapers, jack's potty breaks, laundry, cooking, cleaning and everything else that goes on.

The half wall to the right opens up to the living room.

This is the other side of the kitchen, as seen from the living room. It's our refrigerator (no kidding) and the cupboards that serve as our pantry.

To the right of the refrigerator is the hall way to Jack and Ben's rooms and bathroom. The hall closet on the right holds bath towels, games and toys that are only to be played with an adult, plastic utensils and paper plates, seldom used appliances, vases and pitchers.

That hallway wraps up around to the front door and back into the living room, too. The floor of the kitchen is the cheapest of cheap laminate wood floors. I've put several dents in it, the largest of which happened when my kitchenaid mixer vibrated itself off the counter.

That's all for now . . .

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

i love seeing other people's houses, so i loved this!!

i'm going to have to check ikea for light fixtures...our dining room will need a replacement. and i've been careful to find a kitchen table that has absolutely no grooves for the very reason you mentioned (though i do love the look of it and that it's pub height)!

i really wish our new house had a gas stove; i hate electric. but, it was a trade-off i was willing to make.

Melissa Hoffman said...

I am also a huge fan of the multi-colored spatulas. Such a weird thing but my sisters know what to get me when they can't think of anything else.. a fun colored spatula!! :) Love the kitchen always have. Love your whole house in fact.

Also I had know idea about gas stoves vs electric since the only ones I used were those "eye" kinds (which also suck). Right now we have an electric flat top and I also HATE it.

Angie Peterson said...

The weirdest thing is, I swear we have the exact same cabinet color and countertop! I'll post pics soon for you to see :) Oh and I love looking at homes. I even go as far as to say I look in people's houses if their curtains are open and lights on!! I know, i'm creepy :)

sara @ it's good to be queen said...

well this was a fun tour! :)

just a thought on window treatments...although you really don't need any. Those windows are beautiful & stand alone I think. But if you want something, what about just tacking up some fabric you like with upholstery tacks in between each window. They wouldn't be functioning of course, but they would bring some color & texture. You could put a bamboo shade in each window for privacy & color. just my thoughts. :) love the colored spatulas!