It's nice to be a community project

Our house was built in 1965 and came with a lot of character, which we love. It also came with some cosmetic challenges which we love less.

The bulk of our house's ugly centered in the kitchen. Oh how I wish I had a picture of the kitchen from when we bought the house. It was on the "U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi" end of the spectrum. Imagine early 70's harvest gold and brown with pink (yes, pink) accents. Oh, and zero functionality.

It was begging for an extreme makeover, but kitchen remodels aren't cheap and cheap is our motto these days. So over the years our families have pitched in with elbow grease and to date we have:
*added a portable dishwasher
*torn down the water mill wallpaper and replaced it with a more neutral pattern to downplay the still pink tile
*removed the wall oven that, no kidding, was original to the house
* replaced the wall oven with a much more functional cabinet and freestanding oven

My mother-in-law became obsessed with getting rid of our old countertop with its built-in (also original) stovetop when we got the freestanding oven. That's totally understandable because we had absolutely no counterspace and what little space potential we had was being taken up by the now superflous stovetop. And, really, who needs 2 stoves? I rarely use 1.

Anyway, just give up if the M-I-L gets something in her craw. It's gettin' done. And this weekend my kitchen counter got done. I now have an entire stretch of uniterrupted counterspace that I can chop and assemble on to my heart's content. It's a very happy thing.

We even got a little bonus. We inherited my brother-in-law's fancy to refrigerator to replace our old one (it's a long story and if I typed it out you'd want your 3 minutes back after you read it).

I am a happy, happy girl who will be munching on lots of baked goods over the coming weeks because I now have a liveable kitchen to bake them in.

This little Martha says it's a very good thing.