Kitchen then & now

This is the biggest project in the house so far: embiggening the kitchen. Here's the old one - tiny, with about 16" of counters. Plus a chimney that was taking up valuable space and a huge pantry filled with dust. Lots of windows to nowhere - the pantry had one going to the staircase, and the kitchen had these two going to the porch.  The only things in this picture that survived the renovation are the outer walls and windows.  Even the floor of the kitchen was completely removed and replaced with a level, structurally sound one.  I can't forget what Peter said as we were taking up the third layer of flooring this summer, "You get a heavy kitchen island and 20 people standing around it on those terrible joists, and someone's gong to fall through the floor."  Not anymore!

Old floor with fancy new joists!

Not a great picture, but taken from almost the same place as the old kitchen photo. Those columns are in line with the old wall, and the doorway from old kitchen to living room is gone, with a fancy wider doorway in place of the old porch-to-living room one. The island in the foreground has the stove (it's covered in plastic, and you can see the sink in the countertop on the wall. The big hole in the ceiling foreground is the exhaust fan left over from the original kitchen - the cover is cool so I wanted to keep it. Next step - sealing the countertops with tung oil and finding a coordinating paint color for the dining area on the left.