When we bought our small-town Victorian a little over three years ago, this room was the previous owner’s office. It became our make-shift bedroom/office while we worked upstairs on the master bedroom . . . and then it became a tv room . . . and then my temporary office.
All along, we knew it would someday be our kitchen.
And “someday” finally arrived in January 2021 when we started demo-ing the space. I shared that glorious day with you a lonnng time ago in this post. You may wish to refresh your memory. We made wonderful progress, but (can you believe it?) the kitchen has been ALMOST finished for months. I’ve been waiting . . . and waiting . . . to show you the completed space, but I’ve decided to just go ahead and use a few posts to document what’s been done—and show you “the end” when it arrives. Surely someday it WILL arrive. 🤞
When last I showed you this space, it had been stripped down to the century-old studs, and we were cleaning up the (first of many!) messes.
And then the real fun began!
Adding a door will allow easy access to the side porch and pool side of the house.
Passageway between the kitchen and dining room will have cabinets for dishes!
This was never a good place for the laundry room, so bye-bye!
When our help left on Friday, Renaissance Man and I started building the pantry shelves.
Sheetrock and a new window make it all feel real!
Why did we move the doorway? There’s a hint at the end of this post. 😉
The fireplace mantel was pulling away from the wall, so we removed it and reattached it securely. In doing so, the backside of the mantel held a nice surprise: a tag with the original owner’s name on it. (The first time we saw his name was when restoring the upstairs guest bathroom window.) Behind the mantel, we also found an old painted wood hand mirror. I wonder how it got there. . .
Rev. Elisha Witt moved his family into their newly-constructed home in August 1908.
Fun discoveries like those help (a little) to make up for the grungy parts of renovation—like cleaning out the fireplaces.
Once they stopped burning coal, previous owners stuffed plastic, newspaper, and insulation in all of the fireplaces to help with heat loss. One of our first projects was to cap the chimneys.
Finally . . . walls, plumbing, and most of the electrical were done, and floors could be sanded.
Original heart pine floors
This seems like a good place to stop for today. Next time I’ll show you prettier pics, but in the meantime, know that there was still A LOT of messy going on behind the scenes!
SNEAK PEEK for next time
If you’re enjoying following our old house renovation progress, you won’t want to miss the next post. It’s a fun one!
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I can’t wait to see this finished! I know you’ve put in a LOT of work.
I couldn’t be more impressed! I do good to sweep and mop a room, but you all are totally creating something new out of an old room. 🙂 This is so interesting and exciting, Susan.