At the begin­ning of this year, Steven and I started ren­o­vat­ing our kitchen (on a bud­get). We live in a 1952 ranch-style home with a small, work­ing kitchen that just needed a facelift and some open­ing up. Before, every­thing was white with a neo-Tuscan vibe that was not work­ing with our American-Industrial-Minimalist thang. Let me begin this short series of posts with the before, I’ll reveal the after tomor­row and leave you hang­ing for just a bit. In the mean­time, what would you change about this kitchen? What makes you cringe in yours?

While it may seem like a photo of me carv­ing our 2010 pump­kin, it’s really one of the only pho­tos of our “before” kitchen. Look at how white it is! Those floors were a chore to keep clean.

Here’s an orig­i­nal blue­print of our house. The kitchen is in the upper right, and I tried to show you with the red marks where we knocked down walls – so now the kitchen and break­fast area are open to the liv­ing room directly below it and the “glazed porch” to the left.