House Progress: Dining Room and Kitchen

With the addition of the new chairs, our living room and office are coming into shape. That means I should share some of the rest of the house! Our dining room and kitchen could use a little love too.





Here’s what they looked like before we moved in:









The walls were newly painted when we bought the house, but we just weren't digging the tan and burnt orange. Especially combined with the robin’s egg blue in the living room and the sage green in the living room. So they got a fresh coat of Olympic’s Sweet Illusion. It’s a very light blue.







The peninsula had carpet on it.That’s pretty gross. I tore it off the day after we closed and it felt so satisfying. I ended up just painting over the plywood with some Sweet Illusion, which looks okay from afar. The peninsula was put in during the great kitchen remodel of 1988 (some past homeowners were kind to leave a note on the plywood). They must have gotten the carpet the same year since there was nothing underneath the carpet on the peninsula but plywood. That means that our carpet is 25 years old! Eek. No wonder we have so many allergies. While I would love to replace these eyesores, that sounds like several thousand dollars (we would want to replace the carpet in living, office, and dining and the tile in the kitchen with hardwood) and lots of work. Maybe we will replace it someday if we feel we can get a return from it. Since we have a five-ish year plan here, it’s always a toss up on what we should do to improve the house when it comes to major expenses. Will quartz countertops be worth it? Probably not. New flooring to replace the very old carpet? Maybe.



The cabinets are really bright. I don't know if it’s the finish or just me, but I can't stand ’em. The overhang on the peninsula drives me nuts too. It takes up a lot of space and makes me bend down way too low to get into the cabinets underneath. Here’s what I do like about the kitchen: it’s open and bright. And I like that there are stainless steel appliances. After 25 years, the kitchen could use a little updating.







The dining room makes me smile. It’s one of my favorite rooms in the house. Our chandelier doesn’t really go with anything in our house, so that needs to be fixed. Otherwise, I kind of love the columns and the lead glass doors. We have all our fancy glasses housed in there.



We have an obsession with orchids around here. They typically last 3-4 months (Mike is in charge of watering on Fridays), then when all of the flowers are gone we usually give up on them and get a new one. That’s the one live plant you can rely on finding in our house.



There’s a still a lot of work to be done in these rooms. Oh, who am I kidding, the whole house needs work! The dining room is definitely one of the closest to being finished. It has been painted, has dining room furniture and it is decorated a little.
So here’s what’s on our to-do list of 2013 for the dining room and kitchen:

• Paint the chandelier. I’m hoping a can of black spray paint will make this thing usable. If that doesn’t work out, we may bite the bullet and purchase a new light fixture.
• Add some more artwork to the dining room. I’m thinking a gallery wall around the calendar.
• Add curtains to the dining room. Probably in the same fabric as the living room curtains.
• Add beadboard to the island to make it look finished.
• Paint the kitchen cabinets (white!) and change out (or paint) existing hardware.
• Recover the countertops (either with a countertop kit or some concrete)
• Remove countertop trim and attempt tiling a backsplash?

This should be enough to keep us busy for a while! Coming soon: a peek into the rest of our house!