Our Vancouver Special: Kitchen Complete!

Our kitchen is finally finished! Prepare yourself for the before and afters. We did soooo much work on this kitchen. The only thing we still need is a dishwasher, but that’s a bigger project, so it will come later. For now, just enjoy the photos.

BEFORE: Dark and dirty (so, so dirty) cabinets with carved trim and nasty brass handles.

AFTER: Cabinets painted white, trim removed and new handles.

These cabinets were so gross. Garnet set Emma up cleaning them and after an hour, I told her to just stop. We were already planning on sanding them to paint them, so we just ended up sanding off the grime instead of even trying to clean it. In addition to the cabinets, we also painted the walls and ceiling.

BEFORE: More gross cabinets and gross fridge.

AFTER: Pretty cabinets and homey fridge.

One of the things I bought the first day we moved in (right after we got the keys actually), was a hand-held steam cleaner. It came in handy for cleaning this fridge – it was so gross (gag)! The fridge also has a sort of leak. When the freezer defrosts, the water drips onto the floor. For our first several weeks here we just kept a rag on the floor, then I bought a boot tray and shoved it under the fridge. The water now drips onto the tray and evaporates from there. Oh, and that rug? It’s hiding a tear in the linoleum. Yup, this kitchen is hacked.

BEFORE: WTF?! Counter “repair.”

AFTER: Vinyl tile sticker hack.

You may have noticed in the first photo that we added a backsplash behind the sink. The main reason for this was the terrible “repair” that was done to the counter. Screws and caulk?! WTF?! Since we’re just renting, we used some peel and stick vinyl tile sheets and white caulk. It cost about $40. We also used some underwater set epoxy to better adhere the tiles to the counter because there is always so much water around the faucet – you just can’t avoid it while your doing dishes, washing your hands, whatever. This is what caused the counter to lift originally – and no amount of screws and caulk are gonna make it right. So, barring a full counter tear out, these tiles are the best we could do to make the situation less ugly.

No dishwasher, yet…

As you can see, we have a dish drain rack and tray permanently set up next to the sink. I’m hoping for a dishwasher before the big kids come for the summer. Dishes are hard to manage with 3 people, but with 6, it’s unbearable – where do they all come from?!

A lived in yet clean kitchen.

I like a kitchen that looks neat but homey. There is something about fridge magnets that makes me feel happy. The fridge is like the altar of the home. It holds our family calendar, notices, souvenirs and art. You can learn a lot about someone from their fridge (inside and out), and when making new friends, browsing the front of someone’s fridge when you’re visiting at their place is a good way to gage whether or not the friendship is gonna last.

I love hanging baskets!

I got this basket at a garage sale when Garnet and I flew out to Vancouver to find a place to rent, so it was kind of our first housewarming present (to ourselves!). We keep fruit in the bottom two baskets (at least when the fruit flies aren’t too bad, like right now, since it’s cold out) and the top basket holds this really cool ladle that my cousin turned out of a single piece of wood – it’s an amazing piece of craftsmanship.

Step stool for Arlo and pull out cutting board with scrap bucket.

Here’s that scrap bucket I made awhile back. Garnet has an idea to bore a round hole in the cutting board so that we can push the scraps straight into the bucket. He’d also like to hang the bucket under the hole, but we’re not sure how that would be possible given that the cutting board needs to be able to slide back into the counter. Maybe we’ll just do the hole or maybe just leave it as is.

We’ll also be upgrading Arlo’s stool at Christmas (shhh! don’t tell him). He’ll be getting a Kitchen Helper that I bought off eBay and had shipped from somewhere in the American midwest to Point Roberts, a funny little town (tiny, actually) that sits on a peninsula jutting out from Vancouver. It’s US territory, but it’s surrounded by water on three sides and Canada on the other – meaning that you have to either arrive by boat or travel through Canada to get there from the US. It’s mostly a place for Canadians to buy cheap gas and booze and pick up mail and packages that can’t or cost too much to be shipped to Canada. So, if you ever want to send me something big, send it there.

We’ve got a microwave, people!

A microwave is a necessity for quick chicken fingers and speedy grilled cheese sandwiches (stick in one slice of cheese-topped bread for about 10 seconds and then transfer it to the pan to continue – it saves time on grilling by pre-melting the cheese a bit) which are a necessity for toddlers who go from “not hungry” to “food now” in about 30 seconds.

All hail Expedit!

It’s not the nicest looking way to store stuff, but it’s organized and easy to get to. This part of our kitchen serves as our back entrance and we do crafts at the table there. So, this is where we store our jackets and hats and gloves, as well as our paper and markers and crayons and paints. What can I say? IKEA is just too damn functional.

A neat and orderly back door.

We have high hooks and low hooks. Arlo is very good about hanging up his jacket when he comes inside. He’s still a little short for this mirror, but if he stands on the bench at the table he can see himself (“I’m pretty”).

Shoes off! This is Canada, ya hosers!

Small, cheap shoe rack, but perfect for this location and use. Arlo also does very good taking off his shoes and putting them on the rack when he gets home. I sweep and wipe this area with a rag several times a week to keep dirt from tracking through the rest of the house, but I guess that’s not too bad.

Arlo’s first sticker chart prize – a solar gondola electronics kit.

And, finally, here’s Arlo’s gondola. Unfortunately, because it’s just a continuously running circuit, we don’t get enough light up this high for it to run. Garnet is going to try to put a capacitor on it. At first, I wasn’t too happy about making it a kind of permanent fixture in our kitchen, but it’s since grown on me and now I want it to run. So, hopefully it works out. Otherwise, we’ll just have to put it outside, and we won’t be able to do that for several months.

I hope you liked the tour. It might not look like much, but it was a whole lot of work and it was definitely worth it. I now feel like I have a kitchen I can actually cook in and enjoy and it makes living here nice.