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.

"Love This" pictures



This is the door for my pantry!



Minus the built-in toe-kick on the cabinets, this borders on what I want....with just a little less fitted look.



Look past the yellow island at the stove surround unit. I LOVE this...tin backsplash and all!  I think it would be really fitting for a farmhouse kitchen.  My appliances will be white though....I'm not a fan of stainless steel, and it's going out of style anyway.



So serene. This kitchen has to be from a house in "Hidden Valley", the place where no worries are allowed to enter in.



Don't like the color, love the cabinet.



I want to try to fit something like this into the kitchen for storage, but I'd want the bottom to have some type of foot or something.....and to be a different color.



I like it. Don't know what really grabs me about this picture, but something does.  Maybe the wood countertop. I want wood countertops.



This is my take on a perfect farmhouse sink. I'd love it if someone would find me and love me enough to give me one of these for my very own.



It's fun.



















A day at Sunnybrook....

....is the reason that I'm up posting at 1:35 a.m.! As a work-from-home medical transcriptionist I have typing that absolutely MUST get done before I can even think about you, my very few and far between blog followers.  As Jim and I spent a good part of the day at Sunnybrook, I have spent the entire time since we have been back typing and trying to make up for all the time I lost today.....though I certainly do not consider the time a true loss at all!

I took pictures of the kitchen "as is" from every angle today. However, I'm really not sure you can really call it a kitchen. It only has an unusable kitchen sink and an old piece of  homemade cabinet (of sorts), and both are going. Other than that, there's nothing that would identify it as a kitchen.  As a matter-of-fact, Jim actually wants to "move" the kitchen to an entirely different room altogether. Ummm....I'm going to have to have time to consider this possibility.

I'm sorry to say I'll have to wait until tomorrow to post the horrible kitchen pictures I took today (yawn).   By the way, I also plan to post pictures of the "love-to-haves" I have been drooling over for this room.....if indeed this room actually turns out to be the kitchen at all!

Night time is really the best time to work.  All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.  ~Catherine O'Hara

Goodnight All.

And so it begins....

My husband, Jim, and I have just bought the most perfect imperfect old (1899-ish) two-story farmhouse, which is huge and, well...abused (for now!) 

It always saddens me to see the crumbling remains of an old house.  I imagine it in 'its day' and wonder about the story of the family who lived within it's deteriorated walls.  I've wanted to save every single sad one of those houses!  Jim tells me I've now "rescued" one.

The minute I saw Sunnybrook Farm (yes, it already had a name! How wonderful is that?!)  listed for sale, I wanted it.  No...I WANTED IT!!!  From the minute I stood in the yard and looked toward the huge wrap-around porch and up at the quaint little sleeping porch, I loved it....and it loved me.

We ignored the "Beware of the Dog" sign and excitedly (and hesitantly) crept onto that magnificent porch and up to one of the three large curtain-less (yay!) front-facing windows of the living room.  I pressed my nose to the dingy, dirty old window, cupped my hands around my eyes to block out the sunlight, squinted my eyes, and beheld beauty.  I saw old wide-planked sawmill-hewed farmhouse floors, large windows, interior French doors and glimpses upon glimpses of what could be.  Jim, however, saw work, and in truth, there's lots of it.  Oh, but I have a vision, and it's simply lovely.

And so it begins.....