Then And Now: Kitchen and Dining

Niall has been kind of excited to have updated photos of what the house look liked when we started and how it is now. He really wanted us to have before and after taken photos from the same (ish) angle.    Niall has been really busy with work, so sorry.   It was up to me to photograph.  (Amber, you've asked for lots of house photos. So, you're going to get them.)  So, here we go...

As a reminder, we knocked through the wall that separated the kitchen and dining room.  And we moved the kitchen to where the dining room was, and have our table to where the kitchen used to be.

We first looked at the house in December.  The dining room looked like this:

And now:

There was a (capped) chimney that separated the dining room from the kitchen.  Our adjoining neighbor told us that the chimneys were never designed to have fires in them.  Apparently our 1926 house was new/modern and the chimney was a traditional feature but it was designed for the occupiers to use electric heat.

It was a messy, messy job, but the chimney and wall came down.

And a screed to level the floor.

And the view went from this:

To currently looking like this:

We love the doors in the house.  But we did have several of them flipped around so they open up to the wall instead of into the room.  Then:

Now.  (Didn't the original door fixtures clean up a treat?)

We closed off the entry to the former kitchen, so I can't get this same angle anymore.  But the kitchen door was used for the understair WC we installed.  (You can see the door in the picture above.)   Anyway, the kitchen used to look like this.

And here is how it looked this evening.  (At 8 PM, apparently.)

The exterior wall had a lot of cracking, but the joiners and plasterer have put it right.

And the window above the sink is nice and tall.

Now we use it look outside while we're eating.  And the boiler/closet is right next to it.

I am so pleased to have plenty of plugs.

And we've finally got things pretty well organized.  Like the knives.

And the cooking, uh, thing-a-ma-jigs.

And the sweet tea cups from our friends' grandparents.

And the other crockery.

We bought the range second hand.  It took about 10 hours to clean it.  And I had to pay for a manual (could not find one online.)  But it has been working a treat.  The stove is gas.  I love cooking with gas!  The ovens are electric.  And one is convection.  (My mom just commented how great the convection oven is for baking.  It really is.)  We have the extractor hood sorted as well, venting to the outside!

The dishwasher is installed and working.  The granite countertops have been fantastic.  I love our kitchen.  Sometimes I wondered if we made the right choice buying a second hand one instead of a lesser-quality new one.

But now that the hard work is done, I am so glad with our choice.  The cabinets and drawers are so nice to use.

Here's to lots of cooking, baking and looking out the windows with family and friends!