On the other side of the kitchen
was (notice the past tense) a room with lovely views of the front garden and park through the bay window. As it had a built in nook in the wall that is shared with the kitchen, Ben saw this as being a perfect spot to hang a flat screen TV. Add a couple well placed comfy Lazy Boys and voila! A family room is born. This room is situated on the south facing side of the house, so from sunrise to mid afternoon, it continues to enjoy bright light all day long.
The kitchen on the other hand, which sits behind this room and faces north - was dark and unwelcoming. This large yet claustrophobic space was screaming for a gigantic gulp of fresh air. Simply solved: the "TV" wall had to go. Ben resisted, both realtors were unsure, but I remained adamant.
The heart of the house would not pump freely until these rooms were united as one! Yes, way dramatic, but hey, I got my way!
As soon as the barrier began to be removed, you could almost hear the entire house take a gigantic deep breath. In an instant, the kitchen had gone from 2 windows to 6 and the light poured in.
My evil plan was that there would be a half wall and kitchen bar between the two rooms. This would provide a space for cabinets and the sink, while also making a wonderful place to hang with the kids while they did their homework, or entertain friends while preparing a meal. Best of all, Ben loved how it was shaping up too. Removing so much wall did require a mega beam to be installed, with supports that extend into the basement foundation.
Probably the absolute coolest two finds during this phase of the renovation were the original floor joists - 225 year old tree trunks complete with bark - and also the signature found behind one of the old wall cabinets of the last person to renovate the home's kitchen, Mr. Joe Marsh on Aug 10th 1965. Fifty-four years between kitchen renovations sounds about right!
We had hoped to find an old hardwood floor under the dated linoleum, but alas, it was a mishmash of
God Help Us! Because the floor was so uneven, and we wanted to lay new hardwood to tie in with the now front kitchen (aka "
the Honey a TV room is a terrible idea"), we decided to tear up the mess and our contractor lay an all new subfloor. He also sistered up a number of the tree trunk floor joists to provide additional support. Day by day, the transformation of the space was incredible.
Just wait until the cabinets and countertops go in! Next time, my friends. I think Mr. Marsh will approve.
... a month into purchasing the Benjamin Jacob's house, if I were being completely honest, most days it was all getting to be a bit much. We were using half the upstairs bathroom as a kitchen, each morning I would awkwardly bump into contractors before I had laid hands on coffee or a bra, and my personal favorite - each week I hauled 6 people's worth of dirty clothes, sheets and towels to a local laundromat and then patiently waited and waited and waited. I posted the above from a laundromat on one such evening. What kept me going? Ah, that most beautiful of events called The World Cup. At this point, the bedrooms were all painted and inhabited, so I was painting the front living rooms. I fondly remember this project above all others, preoccupied, half listening to and half watching the World Cup games while screaming for the underdogs, cursing at the refs for their numerous bad calls - and all in all, embracing the new found distraction with open arms.
A couple of weeks later, we did finally have laundry on the second floor (halle-frickin-lujah!!), which meant our contractor could return his efforts to the kitchen. He did a beautiful job tying the new hardwood floors into the old, and getting everything in place. And as the custom cabinets from Joe Giunta's Fine Woodworking got installed with the new appliances, the kitchen really started to feel like it was coming together. And if I can take a second to gloat, the decision to take down the wall was absolutely genius!
The countertops were a particularly difficult decision. In our last house, we had sprung for soapstone, which I had loved, loved, loved. But given the mounting expenses, I had to find a more affordable option. I'm not a huge fan of granite or the more brittle stones, like marble, so decided to hunt for a warmer alternative. After more hours than should have been spent on home improvement websites, I finally found Craft Art in Georgia, who would ship us unfinished black walnut countertops at an amazing price. Joe helped us to create a high-end edge, making the whole look better than I could have imagined.
Even though we still had a ways to go, by this point the kitchen truly felt like the heart of our home. We took the bay window area and made that into a breakfast nook with lots of comfy cushions, and we recreated the paneled finish around the bar area to have the same look as the original paneling that is around the doorway into the kitchen and also around the arch out to the bay.
