The Kitchen

This house stood vacant for several years and is in need of a good cleaning. I decided to start that with the kitchen.

The kitchen is the room most in need of major renovation, though that probably won't be until sometime next year. Here's a clockwise 360 degree look at what we've got to work with...

For a start, this is all I've got for counter space (which extends only about a foot to the left of the dishwasher). The sink is a farmhouse style, single large basin. The cabinets must have been hand made, because each drawer will only fit into one slot. The floor is ceramic tile. The dishwasher will go, because I never use a dishwasher.

The cabinets above the stove are a little strange. I can reach the bottom of the three shelves from the floor, but the top two require a stepladder and the part over the frig is nearly impossible to reach! On top of that, all the ceilings in the house are nine feet.

This swinging door leads into the dining room. The picture on the wall is an interesting feature; I'll show that to you in just a moment.

The door on the left goes into the dining room, the one on the right leads out to an enclosed porch which also serves as the laundry room. On the ceiling, you can see one beam, and also a post on the extreme right of the photo. You can see it's relationship to the rest of the room in the photo below...

You get a glimpse of the back porch through the door. The built-in cabinets are shallow, only about ten inches deep.

Moving a little more the the right, this is the same window as in the previous photo. That's a phone cord hanging over a nail. The nail is on a pseudo vertical beam, which doesn't appear functional. It certainly isn't load-bearing. Mostly it just seems to be in the way as I can't put anything flush against the wall because of it. The previous owners had a small round kitchen table and chairs against the wall there.

The French door leads to an addition to the house, though we don't know when that was done. It contains a fairly good size room which could be used as a study, a second bathroom, and the pantry. Photos for that later.

This is the quaint wall hanging I mentioned I'd show you ...

It is actually hinged....

A pretty nifty place for keys! All of these were left with the house and none of them appear to be functional.

On another note, you can see from these closeups that the kitchen walls are beadboard,

... as is the ceiling.

My challenge now is to design a functional kitchen that meets our needs. This will be the first major indoor project we will tackle, after a few exterior structural projects this summer. In the meantime, this will give me a chance to live with this space, identify current problems with the floor space, doors, and windows, and develop a plan for a workspace I can live with.

[UPDATE: To see what we did with the kitchen, click here.]

Copyright by Leigh 10 May 2009 at http://www.5acresandadream.com/

A New Beginning

Welcome to 5 Acres & A Dream. I don't really have time in my life to start a new blog, but I had a request for some photos, and so decided to create a tiny little space on the internet for this adventure. I may not post very often, but this is where I will share this part of my life.

Those of you who know me, know that owning a few acres and a home has been a dream of Dan's and mine for years. We've had a number of ups and downs in trying to find the right place, so for everything to come together at such a time as this, is truly a blessing.

For the curious, here are a few pix. I took only one of them and none of them are the very good. But they'll an idea of what we've gotten ourselves in to.

This farmhouse bungalow was built sometime in the 1920s. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a pantry off the kitchen, a study, a sun room off the living room, and a back porch laundry/mud room.

These realty photos are a little clearer, but also a little off-center.

Part of the home has vinyl siding, but the owner passed away before he could finish the entire house. The remainder of that siding is lying in the carport, but Dan isn't sure if he wants to finish putting it up or paint the house to restore it to a more original look.

I love the screened-in front porch, but it does face the west, which means a hot afternoon sun. This has me thinking, "deciduous shade tree in the southwest corner of the front yard."

This is the view from the top of the back steps. If you look carefully, you can see two barn red outbuildings. The one in back was a chicken coop at one time. The one in front (with the overhang type carport) has two rooms. The floor of the one out of view is covered with chunks of coal.

Here is a glimpse of the pasture to the north of the home. Unfortunately, none of it is fenced.

These two grandfatherly oaks are lovely, but perhaps too aged to have much life left in them. We need to research caring for elderly trees.
Last but not least is an old aerial parcel photo. True to form, nature is rapidly trying to reclaim all of the cleared parts, as the place has been vacant for several years. This piece of ground is relatively quite level, which is fortunate considering we are in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains.

It's been years since the house had a good cleaning, so we have a lot of work to get it ready to move in to. After that ........ we have big dreams............

© by Leigh 4 May 2009 at http://www.5acresandadream.com/