Evolution of a Kitchen

♫Reflections of 1952♫

If you clicked on the above link you're listening to the music in vogue the year our kitchen was designed and built by a scientist and his concert-pianist wife.  Because we've been doing some refurbishing in our kitchen I thought I'd show you how this kitchen has evolved over the years.  

These photos were given to us by the second owners from whom we bought the house in 1981.  This is how the kitchen looked when the house was sold to them in 1969.  That's my kitchen window you've been seeing in my "View From My Kitchen Window" posts....

They had a low counter beneath the other window.  Just to the right of that was the doorway into the pantry.  That was closed off by the second owners as you will see later.  In the beginning you could walk through that pantry to what was then the dining room.  The second owners turned that room into their bedroom and the pantry became a bathroom....

If you left the kitchen using the doorway on the left you'd cross a hallway into the dining room.  If you made an immediate left you'd go down the basement stairs.  If you turned right, you'd head down the hall to the bedrooms.  The doorway on the right led to the livingroom which is now my dining room because the second owners added another livingroom onto the front of the house....  

When we moved in the kitchen had an orange and black indoor/outdoor-type of carpeting on the floor.  These are my two older sons looking through their Easter baskets in 1985....

This is the corner where the door to the pantry had been.  The second owners put in new cherry cabinets.  The upper corner cabinets had an orange plastic insert in the door.  We took out the low counter so I could put a small bistro table for visiting with friends while I cooked.  We'd bought a new stove by this 1990 photo.  You can see my 1970's Oster stand mixer which fit neatly into the appliance garage in the corner.  The wall behind the stove was the same formica on the counter.  That's my middle and youngest son helping me bake....

In 1994 the cabinets were badly in need of refinishing, so I removed all the doors, sanded them lightly and re-stained them, adding new knobs and handles.  I also put up this wallpaper....

...and the heart wallpaper above the chair rail and cabinets.  We pulled up that horrible carpeting and put down vinyl tile squares, put up a faux white woodplank ceiling to cover the cracks, and replaced the plastic insert with this punched-tin....

I took these photos before the most recent changes.  The door on the left leads to the front porch.  We replaced that in the 90's also.  The original door only had a window on the top half....

You can see I extended the wallpaper all the way around the room in 1994.  I also bought an unfinished cabinet which I stained to match the cabinets to house the microwave.  I added the punched-tin panels to the doors....

We switched out the solid swinging door to the dining room with white french doors.  I'd like to replace them with a french door with windows like the one to the porch one of these days....

We got another new stove and hood in 2007 along with a new refrigerator and dishwasher....

Since the 1994 refurbish the kitchen cabinets had gotten pretty dinged up again.  Late last year I touched up the worn spots the best I could, but Ken still wanted to have a whole new kitchen put in.  There have been so many innovations in cabinets for making a kitchen more efficient he thought we should at least get an estimate.  I was reluctant, not only because I didn't relish going through a remodel, but because I would lose the wallpaper I love so much!  So I suggested we add some of those missing elements ourselves and see how we felt then.  

I've wanted to get a new KitchenAid stand mixer for some time, but haven't because it wouldn't fit in the appliance garage.  Plus, I never used our food processor because I had to drag it out of the corner appliance garage, which was a bother.  I suggested we use the microwave cabinet which meant we had to find a place for the microwave.  Our old 1997 microwave had a broken handle so getting an over-the-range microwave seemed a good solution.  Ken's first project was to shortened the cabinets over the stove and then he installed the new microwave....

Another problem area are our spices.  Some were in the drawer to the right of the stove and some were on the pantry door to the right of the refrigerator.  Ken not only designed and built a holder that he attached to the cabinet door....

...he also made one for the other side of the stove....

That freed up a drawer which has allowed us to spread out the cutlery and utensils and also given me more space in my pantry.

We think our sink was the original one.  It was very worn and never looked clean, so while we were at it we got one that was an extra 3 inches deep.  It's great for washing big pots.  We also got a new faucet with a pull-down spray head.  Because our counter space is best for washing dishes left to right and because this faucet's handle is better suited to a left-handed person and since Ken is left-handed, I told him it seems he's the best person for the job from now on.  I don't think he had this in mind when he suggested a change in the kitchen....

Another area that was annoying were the lower corner cabinets.  They had this wonderful feature of pulling out from the corner with additional storage space, but it was hard to get at....

We found this on-line.  You pull out the first set of shelves....

....move it forward, then pull out the second unit....

We bought all new knobs and handles, this time in brushed nickel to match the other brushed steel touches in the room.  We added hardware washers behind the knobs to try to cover up and prevent further wear there....

When we were all done we had a place for the new mixer, plus I will use the the food processor, now that I can get at it....

And the best part?  I get to keep my wallpaper!