One thing leads to another

It started in the kitchen. There was a lot of cleaning to do. It was quiet and I had time to think. The kitchen was designed and built in the late 1920s. It was end of the Flapper era. It was a time of immigrant labor. The houses were all being built in mock Tudor style or else craftsmen-era wooden built-ins. Every house was a fairy tale, of brick or stone, nestled into the hillside, being built like they were back home in Northern Italy. With one exception, the modern flapper woman, just starting her married life, wasn't much of a cook. She had worked in a factory. Kitchens were designed for a quick breakfast at a small picnic table built into the wall. Lunch was eaten at work. Perhaps at one time, the house used natural gas. Once it was determined that natural gas builds up in the sewers here and levels houses, perhaps they took it out. Perhaps, once they knew for sure that electricity was to become standard, maybe then they took it out. The modern 1940s era kitchen that my neighbor had in an identical house, had two pastel green wall ovens with a small exhaust going out the back porch vent. She still had the matching electric stove but not the refrigerator. At one time, a cistern provided water. The water hand pump was located in the kitchen's NW corner. Why am I telling you all this? My kitchen is the most useless excuse of a kitchen there ever was!

My kid took drafting in high school. One of the exercises was to draw you kitchen layout. Everyone took one look at her drawing and said "What? Why?" No working triangle at all! It's in the shape of an L. It's as if someone built kitchen features on the sidelines of where two paths met. The kitchen is roughly 12' by 12'. There are three doors and two windows. The path between the basement and the back door is almost a straight path. The path from the dinner room creates a T intersection. The layout requires the cook to spend an inordinate amount of time going from one side to the other. We moved the fridge to see if it would help. Someone renovated in the 1970s with fake dark brown wood paneling. There is an almond colored electric stove/oven. The countertops are the original 1920s/30s yellow, designed to match floral fabrics of green and yellow. Mock Tudor was all about florals. Sadly, the previous owners tried to take the 1970s into the 1990s. They added pink blinds and hideous wallpaper. When we moved in in 1994, my dad organized a work party to scrape wallpaper. We didn't get it all off so now it's peeling. The kitchen walls are white which is necessary with all the dark paneling and fake wainscotting. Amazingly that doesn't bother me as much as the built-in fluorescent lights that have never worked. The cupboards are too low. They eclipse part of the electric outlets in some places. That's why we had to move the fridge. If the fridge was plugged in, the light and vent over the stove had no electric. I hate cooking in the dark. The reason the cupboards are so low, is that the stupid fluorescents are contained in a box over the top of the cupboards. It's beautiful space that I could use to put canning supplies.

The original design was laid out with regard to the water pump. The dining room was where evening meals took place. The door appears to have been a Dutch door, complete with bumpers that no one has ever removed. The door is long gone. I was so mad at the design and how tired it's made made over the years, I wanted to take my sledge to that top enclosure over the cupboards.

We've been round and round on this discussion. It needs to be turned into a galley kitchen with a pantry on the other half. The problem has been where to cook while renovation is taking place. And then of course, money. I googled some of my ideas and decided on wire racks that we can put everything on, maybe even move into another room if needed. I need (2) 30" racks and one 36" rack. A new left-handed fridge would need to go where the pump once stood. Walls would need to be insulated, assuming we rip off the cupboards. But how will I know if that design will be worth it? We are looking at doing a mock up. If I can actually get the shelving from Menards (I've had it on order from Home Depot for over a year), then I will put in a 6' table with a three burner portable hot plate. It can't be worse than the stove, can it? I can put a dorm fridge in the space where a full sized refrigerator would go. I can't move the sink, which someone relocated under a window on an outer wall with no pipe insulation. The oven is useless as it only has one coil and no real functioning temperature control. I can see if I like having a large prep area or a breakfast bar. The stove would be on a peninsula as opposed to an island.

East


South


West


North


I need the existing wire shelving rack for seed starting in the basement. The idea would be replace it with a 30" wide rack in that space, in-line with the cupboards, filling the full hole that the fridge used to occupy. It would give much easier access. The east wall would become all pantry shelving. To insulate, the west and north wall have to be cleared. Some may suggest spray-in foam, but there are pipes in the wall from the cistern which may be leaking. The wall must be opened. Old gas pipes need to be removed as well as ancient Bell phone wire. There are even gas pipes going out to the garage, leaving the house somewhere. No gas pipes are connected. It looks like some past tenant really hated natural gas. I've traced where most lines were disconnected. Only the furnace and water heater have gas now. Dad had to extend the line to hook up a dryer.

The kitchen walls are not the original. They are plasterboard. The rest of the house has a different style plaster entirely. Also we need to see if there are any more random concrete pillars. When they had excess cement, they tossed it into the wall. The height of the cement column is not full length. We have a few we've found in other parts of the house. Above the cupboards, the box is painted plywood with a little crown molding. No where in the rest of the house is there crown molding. If I had my way, I'd have wool insulation in the walls, covered in slat or wattle and then cob over the top. If I could, the walls would be terra cotta orange. The counter tops would be butcher's block. The lights would be pendant style over areas I work as well as under-the-cupboard lighting. The location of the stove lines up with the existing venting so a new vent could be easily installed without deliberately trying to hide it. I wouldn't mind a cast iron skillet hanger near the stove either, one of those round things with hooks to hang the pots. If I could get a wood burning stove in the house, I would consider other options. The fire place was an add-on and is not in the center of the house. It's along an outside wall in the living room. Pretty useless when the power goes out. Heat goes straight up the chimney.

And then I heard this report: https://www.marketplace.org/2021/01/28/pandemic-home-improvement-can-lead-to-remodelers-remorse/

I don't want remodelers remorse hence the mockup first to see if we like it.

All this is going through my mind. I've had 27 years of this nonsense. I'd like to actually enjoy my house. We only seem to fix things when we plan to move. I would like to fix things while I'm still here. No. No bank will lend us money with the current economy and state of affairs. If I want change, a lot will be up to me. But first, the kitchen sink fixtures need to be replaced. One thing at a time.