Welcome to the next installment of our house tour series. Today we’re visiting the kitchen.
If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you’ve probably figured out that I don’t really cook. You’ve wondered how I can find the time for a full-time job, plus a blog, plus furniture painting? Well, the answer is, I don’t cook. OK, maybe that’s not the full answer, but it’s certainly part of it. Any cooking that takes place at our house is usually done by Mr. Q, and occasionally even by my sister.
That being said, having a gourmet kitchen is pretty low on our list of priorities. We are very happy with having a mostly functional kitchen instead. We have the basics; a stove, a microwave, a sink, some cupboards and a fridge. None of which are fancy or expensive. And in case you are wondering, no, we do not have a dishwasher. But who really needs one for just two people who rarely cook?
But you know what? Let’s stop here and put this kitchen in perspective by hopping into the time machine and heading back to 2006. This was another of my domino effect decorating projects. It started out with a plan to put in a new sink and counter tops, re-paint the cupboards and walls and tile the floor. But it ended up morphing into something a little bit bigger.
To begin with I started out by removing the existing wallpaper in preparation for painting only to find that the lower half of the walls were covered with a thin layer of hardboard. When we pulled that off, we discovered that the board had been put in place as a quick fix for plaster walls that were in really terrible condition as evidenced by this old page out of my ‘home redecorating’ scrapbook.
At that point my friend/picker/co-worker Sue and her husband kindly offered to help us remove the plaster so we could put up sheet rock instead. Looking back, I still can’t believe how generous that was of them. I’m pretty sure I had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
That lead to the next unexpected decision, to open up the wall between the kitchen and the piano room. You see, Sue’s husband accidentally got a little carried away with the sledge hammer and went right through that wall to the other side.
Rather than panic, we decided that it was sign that we should open up that wall and I’m still grateful to this day that he did that. This change added much more light to the kitchen and really just opened up the entire first floor of our house.
Since we had the walls down to the studs, at that point it made sense to update the wiring in the kitchen and why not put in some counter top lighting as well, right?
Luckily Mr. Q’s brother Joel was able to help us out with that.
We had also planned to rip up the linoleum and do a ceramic tile floor instead. We had even purchased all of the tile. However, when we pulled up the linoleum we found wood floors underneath. So instead we had the wood floors refinished in a checkerboard pattern.
The dark squares are stained and the light squares were left natural.
We hired various people to do most of the rest of the difficult work including sheet rocking the walls and ceiling, and putting in that new arched opening to match the other existing arches in the living room. Plus putting in new counter tops, a new sink and faucet and tiling the back splash.
I still love the simple white subway tile back splash 13 years later. It’s a timeless classic that works really well with the age of our home.
We also purchased new appliances back then, and as I’m writing this blog post I realize that means our kitchen appliances are all 13 years old too. Yikes! They’ll probably start dropping like flies soon.
We have just the one wall of cabinets and we never even considered replacing them. Doing so would be expensive and I like the charm of these originals. They are in really good shape considering they are over 100 years old. I did switch out the knobs though.
They badly need to be repainted at this point though, maybe I’ll get to that next summer. Next time around I’ll likely use Fusion paint for its durability.
Those cupboards at the very top originally had solid doors. We cut out the inserts and replaced them with chicken wire. Since they are up so high it was never practical to store anything we needed to be able to access on a regular basis up there. So it made sense to make them decorative instead.
I have them filled with white (not all of it is technically ironstone) china serving pieces.
The rest of the decorative details were up to me and as per usual there are a lot of garage sale finds in this room. That sisal runner in front of the cupboards was purchased at a garage sale and it’s the perfect size for that spot.
The little cupboard above the radiator by the stove is also a garage sale find.
I keep some of my favorite dishes inside including my french cafe au lait bowls, my numbered plates from Target and a couple of ironstone pieces.
My favorite garage sale find in the room though is the pair of plates hanging on the wall between the pantry door and the bathroom door.
I’ve learned that these are Norwegian cheese plates. I had found an article once that said the writing on them roughly translates to ‘treat the cheese nicely’, but I’ve since lost track of that article.
If any of you out there reading this know anything about these plates, I’d love to hear it.
Anyway, I paid just $1 for these plates and the man selling them said they had belonged to his Norwegian mother. I love them, and even though they didn’t come from my own Norwegian grandmother I still treat them as though they did … and I also always treat the cheese nicely too 😉
Be sure to check back next Wednesday when we’ll take a look behind that pantry door!
q is for quandie 
Love your kitchen. I keep th pix of your cabinets and sink wall. Going to the house in Ireland next month and will update the kitchen. John plans to have the old wood cabinets spayed. I hope to convince him to copy yours and your back spash….l love it. Take good care Dee
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LOL, I bet you meant ‘sprayed’, or maybe your cupboards are multiplying like rabbits 😉 How awesome to be heading to the house in Ireland! I’m so jealous 🙂
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Yes. Lol. Back in spring. Will enjoy your blog while away……thankfully no need to have anything spayed ;-))
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I love your kitchen! And those plates are absolutely amazing. The color on the walls is great. Updating old houses can be quite the challenge, but in a way it’s a blessing to get the crumbling plaster out and wiring updated. And those floors are perfect. Classic farmhouse kitchen is always going to be in style.
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Yep, it was definitely a blessing in disguise and now we have crisp, smooth walls and good wiring for our appliances.
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What a pretty kitchen! I wish we had taken pictures to document the evolution of ours. Love, love, love your floor!
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It really is fun to have old pictures to go back and look at. Sometimes I forget just exactly how far we have come with this house.
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So lovely! Love those floors and cabinets and of course, the “cheesy” plates! Sometimes it’s the smallest finds that speak to our hearts 🤗
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So true Sheri!
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I love the kitchen! You are right, knocking that wall out opened up your house and made it much brighter! (The pantry door helped lighten the kitchen too).
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Yes it did, it’s so nice to be able to get some of the light from the window in pantry into the kitchen.
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Your kitchen is the best. What year did you take down the wall between the kitchen and the dining room? I can’t remember it being up in the first place! Love all your touches in this room, but the pantry door with its window is my favorite. Well…the floor too. Lol
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It was 2006. I’m sure you would have been at my house many times before then. Remember when my kitchen had the fruit themed wallpaper border? That was before the wall came down 😉
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I love your kitchen with the original cupboards–so charming. The wood checkerboard floors are darling, too. Your house tours are so fun–thanks for sharing!
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I’m so happy that you are enjoying them. I have to confess that I really struggle with showing my own house because I tend to feel like it’s not ‘blog worthy’, it’s not a fancy new kitchen, I don’t have an $8,000 stove, yada, yada, yada.
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Your kitchen is lovely, lots of personality. Those cheese plates are wonderful. I never can understand how people can sell heirlooms but I am always happy when I am able to buy them for myself. My Nuni had a good chuckle that I wanted her slop bucket and her washboard. She had nothing fancy yet the items that served her well are what I treasure.
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I was happy to give those cheese plates a good home 🙂
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Really cute!
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Thanks Valerie!
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Love your kitchen! I have the same delft coffee grinder and little white cupboard! Your cabinets are beautiful, and the floor, wow were you lucky to find the wood floor!
I think Mr. Q should try a beard like his brother! 😁
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That coffee grinder was a wedding gift from a friend that lived in Germany at the time. It’s one of the few things that we’ve hung onto for all of these years!
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Those original cupboards are amazing. I wish I had the originals from my grandparents’ farmhouse. I like your kitchen…it’s pretty, functional, & simple.
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Thanks Jeannie! I like that it’s simple too 🙂
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Original cabinets, checkerboard floors and pantry door give this kitchen an irr cottage vibe. Puts a smile on my face just looking at it.
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Well, this is one instance where I can’t interpret the typo, not sure about the ‘irr cottage’ vibe … or is ‘irr’ an acronym for something? I’m pretty sure you don’t mean ‘internal rate of return’. But I’m sure that whatever you meant, it was good 😉
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Well Miss Quandie, the giveaway that you don’t do much cooking is the absence of a venting hood over the stove! Ha ha……..how freeing! After I had my two boys I realized that IT’s ALWAYS DINNER TIME! EVERY DAY! We quickly progressed to lots of take-out! I think that my favorite thing in your kitchen is your glass pantry door…..I love it and I want one! Thanks for the tour ;-D
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LOL, good eye Connie. Well, the kitchen never had a venting hood. No, wait, I take that back. It did have one, but the vent didn’t actually go anywhere. We figured that out during the remodel too. The microwave above the stove does have a fan, but we rarely use it. As for the door, I’ll talk more about that next week!
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Your kitchen is charming. I love the floors!! The cabinets are awesome. I would not change them out either. Your home is beautiful 😊
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Thanks so much Monica!
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I adore the charm of your kitchen. It has so much character!
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We bought a brand new house in a brand new subdivision. I’ve been wondering how to give it personality. Your kitchen cabinets have inspired me to have someone upgrade them with trim from the builder’s standard to something wonderful like yours!
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