Wednesday, October 7, 2009

The kitchen reno - part 1: "Before"

So many people ask us: "Why are you renovating your kitchen? There's nothing wrong with it!!!"

Well, so many people are unfortunately wrong. There were lots of things wrong with our kitchen. I had several problems with it. Namely:

The colour - I don't mind the colour on an individual basis, but I found it overbearing in the kitchen. On walls that you stare at all the time, that dark, angry red was a very negative force. Not to mention that darker paints make rooms feel smaller, and show more imperfections in the walls.

In the below photo, the only part that remains is the Table (for now), and the Light fixture. The walls have been painted, the door replaced with an insulated steel door, and the floor is gone!



What you can't see in the below picture, is how inefficient built-in-wall-oven is. The only time the oven door is closed firmly is when you stand and hold it closed. Since the thermostat was installed in the kitchen (seems dumb, but I'm not a heating and cooling expert??), and the oven door doesn't fully close (lol), the room temperature, and thus the temperature of the house, is affected by what's happening in the oven; in the winter, when the oven is on, the kitchen gets warm and the furnace thinks its doing a great job and shuts off, leaving the rec-room downstairs and the bedrooms upstairs FREEZING! The same thing of course happens in the summer, when the kitchen heats up, the AC goes crazy and freezes the rest of the house!

Another unseen hazard is the overhead cupboard. Many large concussion-creating baking and cooking accessories are stored up there (incl some heavy stoneware, pyrex, and even a rolling pin!). Don't open it without wearing your hardhat!!

I'm not even going to mention the fact that this built-in-oven was the same model I had in my parents house, a decade ago.




This photo here shows pretty much ALL of our counter space. Don't even try having two "cooks" in the kitchen. As for finishes, don't you just love the retro-painted-brick look not only on the backsplash, but also on that lovely archway over the window? As a side note, you can't wipe the brick backsplash, because the painted surface would come off on your cloth and ruin its lovely appearance, and could be dangerous!





Ben Sage, Sales Representative. Re/Max a-b Realty Ltd., Brokerage. 519-536-7535. 521 Dundas St., Woodstock, ON

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