kitchen before

Here's a look at our kitchen "before".

*Disclaimer: I would like to take a moment to note that despite all these things I'm saying I dislike about our kitchen and other areas of our house that we've changed or plan to change, we really love our home.  Every day we say how much we love our house and our yard and our neighborhood, etc.  We just want to make some improvements to make it more comfortable, more updated, and more "ours".  I just wanted to put that out there for the record so yall don't think I'm some snob who thinks she's too good for our 1971 home.  Bueno.

View of the kitchen from the laundry room/nook area.  Flourescent light has to go, along with those soffits above the cabinets on either side. The upper cabinets above the peninsula are the main thing we wanted gone, but just tearing those down wouldn't provide enough cabinet space.  Also this is the only counterspace other than the small  1x2 area next to the range. We've already taken out the dishwasher to look at plumbing.  We'll have to move the drain and vent for our new plan.

View of the dining area where the kitchen will grow into.  Check out those sweet stools - cheap craigslist buy - good job Chris!  If you look closely you can see we've already started tearing out the paneling on the peninsula bar. (And you can catch a glimpse of our now-red entryway.)

Here's a great view of the boob kitchen from the dining room table.  We had to rotate the table against the wall, so now it's perpendicular to the back wall/window.  It's not as ideal as being centered nicely on the window, but it has to move that way to accommodate a bigger kitchen. It also means the can recessed lights Chris installed are no longer directly above it... but all of our lighting will have to change anyways :)