In the kitchen...

I'm not sure how many of you out there are actually reading this blog, but if you are and if you have been reading it for sometime you may remember that Daniel and I moved back from a year in Malawi, Africa this past summer (2010). When we moved back we moved into a house that we had owned for a number of years but always rented out. It is basically in Uptown Charlotte area..with an awesome view of the Bank of America skyscraper and other buildings and close to NC Music Factory (awesome in the summertime, free concerts on our front porch). Anyway, we love our urban life here in Charlotte. Maybe someday we will trade it in for a bigger house and more land, but for now we feel very much a calling from God to live out a missional life in our neighborhood and city...loving the poor and the disenfranchised around us. (another post for another day...promise).

So with urban living comes small spaces. As mentioned, Daniel and I rented out this small, 3 bedroom house as it was when we bought it...so when we came home last summer we knew we had our work cut out for us. Hardwood floors, new ceiling, painting, knocking down walls, putting up walls, new bathrooms, and re-doing our kitchen. WARNING: the following pictures could be harmful to your healthy...beware of shock! :)

Before pictures. Our renters painted the kitchen a BRIGHT yellow....and those cabinets, ICK. and the old floor. Oh MY!

DEMOLISHING and construction of Ikea cabinets.



AFTER: All cabinets from Ikea (put together by my awesome husband and our friend, Zach. Oven and overhead microwave from Lowes, dishwasher and fridge from local Habitat ReStore, countertops are from a local wholesaler (they are actually laminate but have a beveled edge and a marble design--we didn't want to put marble in such a small kitchen that we may not be in forever and maybe one day knock a wall out and redo again for more space). Curtains I made myself...a faux roman shade!



I LOVE Ikea cabinets for all their space-saver designs! We totally needed it for this blocked-in kitchen. I took down most of the above cabinets because I didn't want to feel so closed in. I really love the open shelving that is so popular now days, so maybe we will do that at some point. But I am loving all the organization and space-saving ideas that Ikea has for kitchens. My favorite is the lazy-Susan type cabinet that we have in both corners--it turns and pulls out to use ALL the space in the corner cabinets...oh, Ikea, you never cease to amaze me. Thankfully, our local Ikea is only 10 minutes away. YAY!


And, I am loving my new faux roman shades! I just finished this the other day. I've been dying to use this fabric somewhere...I love it! Since we live in the city we couldn't get away with just a valance or a cafe curtain, we still needed full window coverage from the street. So I hemmed my curtains and used a backing fabric and actually adhered the fabric to the already-there blinds, taking out the blinds that I didn't want to create the roman shade folds. I still need to tweak a few things--let's face it, I'm no seamstress, but I am pretty impressed that I actually made curtains that are functional! Never did that before.

nice--you can see our garbage cans on the sidewalk outside...ha, just keeping it real here, guys!
Thanks fo going down memory lane with me and viewing our before/after small, urban kitchen! We still have to do a few more things...aka light fixture, but we love it so far!