Kitchen Improvements

I promised in an earlier post ("Cooking Basics") that I would add photos of my current kitchen once it was clean enough to photograph. For some reason, keeping up with the kitchen has been particularly hard this week, while those who visit my house regularly can tell you that I don't like for it to stay messy for long. My sink is currently full of clean dishes, but that's as close to clean as I'm going to get this morning. Time to photograph:

This is 100 times better than what I had before (see POSSUM!, posted earlier this month). There were aspects of my old kitchen that I really liked, especially after we decorated some while I was pregnant with Parker, but really and truly, that old kitchen was a nightmare. I liked the view of trees outside the window that reminded me of campus ministry campouts in college. I loved the wonderful light that came in through the window, and the fact that there were birds almost always flying about. I liked my ragged cobalt blue composition tile floor, and the fact that I could open the door and let fresh air in whenever I liked. I didn't, however, like to spend very much time in there, which really is a problem when you're trying to be sensible in your spending. Writing about it this way, though, should help me to remember. The new kitchen doesn't have the best layout I've ever seen. However it does have a built-in dishwasher, a double sink (!), and countertop work space.

You can't tell from the picture, but there's a bookshelf in the space between refrigerator and oven. The door to the outside is nice, but I need to get a screen door for it so that I can open it in warm weather and not worry about Parker crawling out. I like it pretty well the way it is now, but one of my goals for the future is to tap into some of my interior design training and redesign the whole thing, probably with assistance with IKEA's online kitchen design program. I'll do that on paper and then Michael and I can decide what the priorities are, and how much we'll have to save to implement the design. I said I have interior design training, but I never really worked in the field, so I don't have good experience to draw on. I hope that what I have is good taste and good sense to come up with something truly functional. The more I cook in this kitchen, the more I'll know what actually needs to be done. For now, I'm just happy to have a kitchen of my own, and I think it's pretty besides.