Kitchen - before

Before we purchased our home, last year, we knew there were some major upgrades we would need to do. First being our Bathroom (looking back on our blog we really haven't even made a complete bathroom blog post - it's done we promise).  Next on the list was our kitchen. Okay, maybe not "next" but it was one of the major projects we wanted to do.

These pictures (above/below) are actually from the real estate listing for our house before we bought it. I didn't really take any great before pictures. The tile floor from these pictures is underneath a new vinyl floor. We're still a little confused as to why they put vinyl down when there was tile?? Maybe there were some bad cracks somewhere and they just wanted to help sell the house? Who knows. Anyway, the vinyl that is down now is cheap. It's not even put down property. We have wrinkles and a few rips in the floor already after only living here a year. We're not that rough on things.

As you can see there's a lot of orange going on in these pictures. Orange wall paper, orange curtains, orange back splash, orange counter tops, and brown (might as well be orange) cupboards. Can you say 70's?!

The blinds in this picture were added after we moved in. The first improvement to the space. They replaces a nasty lace valence.

Above is honestly the only picture I can find of the built in desk on the back wall. You can't really tell but there is a cupboard behind me and then a desk connected to a long cupboard on the left. Below you can see a large square on the wall were we took down a matching cupboard. Logan and I are sitting in about the same spot in these two pictures. Although, he's sitting in the space where the built in desk used to be. There was a cupboard above him and a cupboard where he is sitting that were the same size. We took down the two shelves that connected the top cupboard to the long shelf on the left as well (also no pictured).

I started taking down wall paper  and back splash while Logan started taking apart the counters. Good bye orange! I learned it is actually easier to take wall paper off of plaster than dry wall. There were a few spots in our kitchen were dry wall was put in (with the renovation in the 70's - they turned the dining room into the now kitchen).

You can see where Logan has already started reinforcing the cupboards to place a new granite tile counter top.  You can see the 2x4's in the corners and in between the two drawers.

 

Random kitchen shots during our demolishing. You can see the vinyl floor.

Best off all, Logan had some great "helpers"! Trevor sure loved to climb on Logan as he was checking out our old plumbing.

Opossum Visitors

The day we started demolishing our kitchen we noticed some friendly visitors in our back yard. 3 opossums! I have never really seen them this close before. I've seen some dead on the road in passing but never alive and walking around in broad daylight. I grabbed my zoom lens to try and catch a close up picture of the little buddies.

They seemed stuck in our yard and didn't know how to get out. We do have an inclosed back yard now :)  Logan went out to see if he could heard them towards the back gate. As he went out 2 of the opossums ran out the open gate.  There was one who ran behind our pool to the patio and deck where I was standing. Pretty fun to see. Trevor and Brennan both loved looking at them.