On to the kitchen!

We have been super busy in our little bungalow! First we rebuilt the front porch. Then painted every wall in sight. Then replaced windows and the front door, put up some board and batten in the living room, installed new light fixtures, put in new carpet, rebuilt a closet and tore another one out. The list goes on. But now and then we would do a little something or other in the kitchen.

This kitchen. Ay yi yi. I've always really liked cooking (mostly just because I like eating). But when we moved in here, I could hardly make myself go into the kitchen to cook. It was a dark, depressing, hole of a kitchen. I didn't have much hope for it. Dark, grimy cabinets, a dropped ceiling with a fluorescent light, a window with awful trim (the casing didn't even meet up with the window-there was a good two inches between where the casing stopped and where the window started. So you could see all the spray foam they poured in the gaps), old appliances. It was terrible. But I had grand ideas for it, thanks to Pinterest, even though I wasn't sure most of them would work out.

Let's start at the beginning. Pretty much the very first thing we did after getting the keys (after discovering the burst pipe in the crawlspace...) was rip out the ceiling tiles in the kitchen. Whyyyyy would someone do that?? There are so many things about this house that we will never understand.

Oh, the cobwebs. And the grime. And the wiring weirdness and dust and just overall ugliness. I tried to clean the ceiling. I tried to prime it. But after who knows how many years of grease and bugs up there, it was just too nasty. So I made other plans. But in the meantime, we got a new light fixture! It was beauuutiful. One of our few splurges on the house. (The front door and the bathroom fan/light fixture being other splurges). We used a 10% off coupon at Lowe's to get the beautiful Allen + Roth fixture for $179 and Ben got to work installing it. Which was quite a headache and we went for quite a while with no light in there! The old light was hooked up to an outlet, and other things were wired in through there too. So there were extra wires we couldn't figure out what to do with, but my handy hubby didn't give up and he figured it out! And then he turned it on and I heard angels singing!!

The ceiling was still disgusting. The cabinets were still dark and grimy. The hood vent ductwork was still exposed. But I had a new light. A gorgeous, vintage-looking, lovely new light. I still didn't want to be in the kitchen very much. But I had one good thing in there to focus on! 

Now about the light. It is beautiful. I love it so very much. The thing is, those bulbs aren't very bright. It's not really intended to be the main light fixture in a room, and I had read reviews that it wasn't very bright, but I wanted it anyway! I looks amazing, and in our tiny 9x10 kitchen with 2 windows, it is fine. Later on, I did put some under cabinet lights in to help in the evenings when it is darker in there, but even without them it was fine! I still am in love with it although I would love to find some brighter yet still pretty bulbs!

So this was the first of many projects in the kitchen. This was maybe 4 months after getting the keys, and another 8+ months later we just finished the bulk of the work in the kitchen (besides the expensive things like putting in a dishwasher, redoing countertops, new appliances, etc.). And look at it now! Much more to come!

Total spent on new kitchen lighting: $179