First project: The kitchen

Yesterday was our first real "planning" visit to Sunnybrook. See the "before" (as is (are)) pictures.  It's not a huge kitchen...only 13.6 x 13.3.  The doorway directly in front of you as you come through the kitchen door from the side porch will no longer be there in the "after" pictures, which I will post as soon as there are "after" pictures to post.

As you see, there is a fireplace in the kitchen! It will be converted (for safety reasons) from a woodburning fireplace to a gas fireplace; however, all the character, though tweaked, will hopefully be left in place.  Along with that reinvented fireplace you'll also be eyeing a bead-board ceiling, refinished hardwood flooring, a finished pantry (complete with a red screen door), an old white enameled kitchen table, and....well, who knows what else!  I've had tons of ideas running through my head and searched too-numerous-to-count websites looking for  inspirational kitchen pictures.   Oh, the possibilities!

I never knew the picture in my head of the perfect farmhouse kitchen had a style name, but it does indeed...it's an "unfitted" kitchen. Who knew? Well, I'm sure you may have known, but I never knew.  An unfitted kitchen is "the" thing in European kitchens.  Seems when the Europeans move, they tend to take their kitchens with them. Novel idea.  This type of kitchen has furniture pieces for storage as opposed to lined up, "fitted" together, screwed-to-the wall type of cabinets.  The unfitted kitchen has the look that it has developed over time....my idea of a perfect kitchen.  I know I'm going to be searching the antique stores and flea markets looking for the odd shelf, quirky cabinet and big armoire to use as storage in the kitchen, but I'm still mulling over what colors to use, and where to use them.

OK, so take a look at the before pictures I took yesterday (as promised). 

The picture above is just the tip front of the fireplace.  I took a picture of the complete front, but as you can see the fireplace surround (which is ugly and is being removed) has a mirror, and all you could see in that particular picture was a white blob. The glass door you see is in the dining room, and hopefully will someday be transformed into a double French door.

I took the above picture so you could see the doorway that leads from the kitchen into the living room.  This doorway will be closed off to give us a tad bit more wall space in the kitchen.  The French door from the hallway into the dining room will be the entrance to the kitchen at some point in the future.