Kitchen, before and after

That musty old smell is back...

We moved into our new (old) house about a year ago. It was hot, the sun and the neighbors music were both blaring, and there was this musty old smell that I just could not get rid of. It was (is) kind of a mix of cat musk, cleaning fluid and dust. Since we got home from the beach I've been smelling it again, and I've also been having some unpleasant flashbacks to last summer's move and the homeowner trials that followed... Like this, and this, and this.

So I thought it would help me to look back and see how far we've come in this house. This, hopefully, will distract me from the broken tiles in the bathroom, the unfinished attic, and what Andrew has taken to calling our zombie apocolypse backyard.

It's hard to call this room the Before Kitchen, becuase it hardly qualified as a kitchen. It was kitchen-ish. There was a tiny sink, some broken cabinets, and a hideous, filthy old stove. I shudder to think I prepared food in this room for a month.

BEFORE KITCHENISH

The brown door in the wall was to a strangely large cupboard we could never figure out the purpose of.

As soon as I tried to put something heavy on that little cabinet next to the stove, it broke into a million pieces.

The beautiful built in cabinet that made me want to buy the house, musty smell and all.

MIDDLE

After two months of "cooking" in this "kitchen" our contractor got to work and it was quickly demolished. And then s-l-o-w-l-y, s---l---o--w--l--y a new kitchen was built.

new windows! new walls! no more crazy cupboard!

new cabinets! new appliances! new floor!

This was where I "cooked" our meals for 4 months. Including Christmas dinner. Sob.

OhMyGod I want to go cry just looking at this photo. Please notice the many bottles of wine and the big box of tissues.

KITCHEN.

Slow and steady wins the race, once again. After 4 months and we lost track $$$, we have a beautiful new kitchen. Phew. 

Now to figure out what to do with the zombie playground backyard.