The Kitchen in that old farm house was hand built by the homes first owner and had never been updated. When we first moved in the refrigerator was in the entry room, a weird room off the laundry room.
To describe it best I'll walk through from the driveway with you. The first door you enter from the driveway went into the laundry room a 6ft by 14ft room that did not have a single straight wall. I think it was space between the house and garage that they just decided to make part of the house one day. the laundry room was four walls with four doors one on each wall that led to the driveway, garage, backyard and the entry room.
The entry room was another weird little room some in MI called them mud rooms. A place where you could land your muddy shoes that also had the refrigerator and led to the only small bathroom in the house. My theory was, and when we remodeled there were indications, that the house was built a little at a time over many years.
From the entry room you enter the kitchen. All of the cabinets were on the left side of you as you were walking through with the sink in the middle and the door going to the dining room on the opposite side. A straight shot right from one doorway to the other.
I decided one day while in town that those ugly cupboards could use a coat of paint and picked some up at the hardware store. Then when my little guy fell asleep for his afternoon nap I started taking all the doors off the cupboards and painting the base. When my husband finally got home for supper, there I was sitting on the kitchen floor painting the doors and our little guy was sitting by the gate in the doorway playing with his toys.
I knew that there wasn't much I could do to make that old house my own and look good without his help, but I knew how to paint and could do at least that much. I was so proud of myself when I finally finished and put it all back together the next morning. It was my very first home remodeling project.
We continued to live in that house for the next 18 years and that poor kitchen never did get any more done to it, but we had always dreamed of remodeling it and turning it around creating our dream kitchen. In the end we had lived the dream without needing a "dream kitchen".
Isn't it amazing how when you look back on things, what seemed important then really wasn't. It was all about the time we shared, not the place we shared it in.
