When we bought the farm house, it was listed as a tear down. It looked horrible. However, I saw the potential and once I was able to get Mr. DJ to see it as well, he got on board.
The kitchen was a freakin' nightmare.
The window into the added back porch had wire over it, as they had kept their dogs in the back porch. The wet wall to the bathrooms was open and they had added washer and dryer hook ups in that area.
Not sure what they had been doing with the kitchen ceiling, a lot of it was wide open, but we fixed that.
I initially moved the 80's chandelier that had been in the dining room into here, but then I found this AMAZING milk glass chandelier at a thrift store that matched the original sink light. It's just perfect.
For security, we replaced this original front door with a steel solid door. I moved the front door back to here. So far I haven't painted it. I like the story of it. I will probably eventually repair, restore and paint.
One of my clients was remodeling their house and knew I was working on the farm house. They had this stove that they had been using and asked if I wanted it. Uh, YEAH!!! Free. Perfect. One of Mr. DJ's friends had made the shelf above and was getting rid of it. Asked if I wanted it. Again, yeah, perfect, free. She said I hung it upside down. I like it like this. All the choochkies we either had, were given, or got at the thrift store.
The cabinets had a horrendous teal sponge painting job. And the back splash was contact paper. Luckily the original milk glass light fixture was still over the sink.
The sink was rusted and full of mouse droppings. And a dead mouse.
The top was taken off, sanded to the nth degree and epoxied with several coats by Mr. DJ. He used the big enclosed trailer as a paint booth. The finish didn't last forever, about 5 years of babying it. Once we got other people in the farmhouse with us who didn't use as much care, it started to come off. Needs redone at the moment. But, it is enamel and can be re-done to look good again.
The east wall was wallpapered in an early '80s peach metallic floral. When the wallpaper was removed, we could see a Dutch themed mural in the middle of the wall.
The wall was painted. I used a high gloss enamel on the original tongue and groove wainscoting. It shows some history, but we like that. You can see on the left that it was originally a sage green where a cabinet had been covering it.
I bought a framed picture at a thrift store for $10 that I went over with chalkboard paint that we use to keep track of worming, foaling, hay, etc.
The floor. Ohhhh the floor. There was a big hump in the middle and it sloped sharply in front of the back door. [100 years old on a stone foundation. yeah.] So, I had to rip it up. Not fun. 80's stick on tiles. Then linoleum.
On top of - linoleum.
I got it cleaned, sanded/cut out/scraped down in the middle and used floor leveler to get it as even as possible before laying down 1/4 inch backer.
I found the commercial tile on Craig's list and bought the lot. It nearly covered the kitchen in the black/gray and there was enough pinky-gray to do the upstairs bathroom. JUST. I had to buy 2 plain black tiles to put under the stove to finish it up. Missed it by [that] much. BUT, they are COMMERCIAL TILES, which in this house means that they won't crack as easily as the old bones continue to settle or if something gets dropped in the kitchen on them. I also was able to get them for around .35 a square foot. SCORE.
I chose to keep the original wainscoting and and where it wasn't, we added bead board. No, it's not the same, and it doesn't match exactly, but it still looks fine together and really finishes the room.
I REALLY wanted to have crown in here. We found it and the chair rail at a Habitat for Humanity reStore for ridiculously cheap. It was a new experience for us, but once we figured out the cutting trick of doing it upside down, it went really fast and made a huge difference in the over all feel of the room.
I absolutely LOVE how the kitchen turned out. It was a LOT of hard work, but it was well worth the effort.
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