corners of our home::the kitchen & dining

When we first looked at this house there were two things that I fell in love with immediately. The first thing was the yard, lots of mature trees, several concrete slabs and lots of wide open space. The second thing was the kitchen – not because it it big and fancy, but because it is open, has lots af great cabinet space and does not have a dishwasher.

At some point in the 45 year history of this house the wall between the living room and dining and kitchen area came down – but the dining room paneling remained up (but that’s a project for next year). Apparently the family was smaller than ours is and they carpeted most of the dining area leaving just a small breakfast nook for a table. We knew that our first inside the house project would be to pull up the carpet and lay some new flooring.

I love having our computer in a central location – in the last 2 homes the computer has been in our bedroom. It makes everyone more accountible with their time and me more accountable with the paper clutter. We took the doors off the cabinets over the refigerator because they would get caught on the top of the refigerator when we opened them. All of our canning goods are stored here and all along the top shelves in each of the cabinets. I’m missing a box with framed pictures in it. When I find it I’ll have pictures for these walls. The desk and bookshelves have been in Christian’s room for several years. We rearranged furniture when we moved here based on what would work best where and so these are now for the “office area”. They really need to be repainted, I orginally painted them about  seven years ago, but that will probably not get done this year.

This kitchen has alot of cabinets although they don’t all latch properly – I need to add that to the goals list. In the last few homes I’ve not have very many cabinets and didn’t keep much food in my kichen – we made a pantry in other parts of the house like the mudroom. It’s been nice keeping all the main food in one place.

My sister and brother in law gave us the cart as a housewarming gift. It’s great for serving on or add just a bit more counter space. It also holds my KitchenAid mixer – our cabinets are too low for the mixer to stay on our counters. I love that it is on wheels, we can turn it and turn our table to add another 6′ table in here when we have family over.

My grandfather made the bread box from an old radio years ago for my grandmother. I keep my measuring cups and spoons in there for easy access.

Our sink has a lip on it and so I couldn’t find a drain board that would drain the water into the sink – it ran all over the counters. So I made some mats to put under the drainer to catch the water. I used old fabric and sandwiched some batting inside. I’m loving them.

I love that this area is the place to be – most of the time all of us are in the living/dining/kitchen area doing something or just hanging out wondering what will be for dinner, which of course is the never ending question.

Thanks for sharing with your friends!