Our current old house rehab was racking up expenses so I decided to keep the kitchen as is until the refrigerator and/or freezer give up the ghost and maybe even longer.
The kitchen was redone in 1989, according to the date on the huge fridge and freezer.
At first the kitchen didn't look so good. But once we removed the old back stair chair lift and added knobs and scrubbed and shined, things looked much better. Someone took good care of the place.
Not sure what happened to all the knobs, but I found solid brass ones in my basement, left over from a previous kitchen project no doubt. I also found solid brass back plates down there. The missing drawer front from the roll top cabinet was located and wow what a difference old knobs and a shine can make!
The handle and lock on the adjacent pantry door perked up big time with a scrub and polish as well.
The house was empty for awhile without much attention, not to mention no electric or water or air conditioning. Things got dirty.
The fridge and freezer had been thoroughly cleaned inside and wiped down on the outside after we purchased the house, but the whole kitchen needed a real scrubbing.
I conned my sis into helping me and we got down to business.
Notice the Re-Use knobs that are starting to appear in the photo below.
We wiped out and then scrubbed all the drawers and cabinet shelves. Then we removed the old contact paper and scrubbed some more. We cleaned the exterior cabinet doors and drawer fronts with a nontoxic cleaner that wouldn't hurt the wood. And, we added new non-stick shelf and drawer liner.
Other than adding knobs to the almost 30 year old cabinetry, a very impressive kitchen update was made by cleaning the windows! Natural light does wonders.
The adjoining sunroom had lots of windows but not much light was getting in. They are not yet their shiniest, but they are now letting in nice natural light.
The old nonfunctioning dishwasher and 30 year old microwave have been removed. The cabinets and drawers are ready for a functioning kitchen.
New appliances, except fridge and freezer, are being researched and sourced. They must be usable if and when a rearranging of old cabinets occur or a complete update is done.
I might be able to keep the base cabinets in place and go ahead and put in new backsplash, sink, and countertops. The only thing stopping this idea at the moment is the oven stack you see in your face between kitchen and sunroom, in the photo above.
Stay tuned and imagine what this photo would look like if the tall oven cabinet came down to counter level. This kitchen needs to function while we work on other more pressing needs and get out of a cold winter situation further north. We want it nice without much redoing later.
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