My teeny, tiny updated 1959 kitchen (pic heavy)

[Holly_Hobby]

We bought our house in 1992, it was built in 1959, and a whole 730 sf. It was $20K cheaper than the rest of the homes for sale in our neighborhood because of the poorly designed kitchen. There's a wall built in the middle of it to house the furnace, hot water heater and washer/dryer. I didn't really care about the kitchen because I'm not much of a cook.

The sink should have been under the other window, and the side door should have been at the back of the house instead of the side. They took the easy way out, putting the sink closer to the bathroom plumbing on the other side of the wall.

In addition, the cabinets are handmade and custom sizes - it would have cost $37K to replace them! Not in this lifetime, we don't have that kind of cash laying around. So we spent around $1,100 and kept all the charm and the wonderful plasterwork (which I forgot to photograph). So here's my kitchen, full of my mother's teal glass, and my great-grandmother's slag glass light fixtures and lamp. The trivets on the wall belonged to my grandmother.

Our appliances are bisque-colored and were new about 3 years ago. I didn't want to go with stainless because I decorated the cabinets, corner cabinet, shelves and plate rack with pennies. Crazy, I know, but when the sun comes through the windows, it's gorgeous. The corner cabinet was in the house when we bought it, it's handmade too.

We used the cabinet that used to sit above the built-in cooktop and oven, which was gone when we bought the house, to build in the frig. I didn't think to take before pictures, the cabinets are some kind of fruitwood, the countertop was covered in vinyl flooring with a yellow cast iron sink. It was bad, bad, bad.

Now, the walls are bisque, along with the appliances and sink. The countertop is Emperador marble laminate, but the table is genuine marble with short brown leather benches that slide underneath. The floor is peel and stick Armstrong tiles.

Let me know what you think. When I tell people I glued pennies on everthing in the kitchen, they think I've gone off the deep end I took the closers off the cabinet doors and filled the holes from the knobs because the closers were so loud. I glued magnets onto the doors and cabinets to keep them closed, they're silent now.

The little cabinet under the plate rack is actually a drop-front trash can that my husband built. He did the sink cut-out on the countertop and we used the scrap piece for a top for it. And it's on casters!

I'm no designer, but I'm completely happy with it.