Ah, the kitchen: A Study in Dysfunction.

Ah yes, the kitchen.  There was, or is, something wrong with every. single. room. in this house but the kitchen is the icing on the cake, if you will.  Or it's in a very close battle for First Worst with the master bathroom.

I haven't brought it up, other than the day I installed the faucet.  Oh and a quick mention about having no drawers.  And right, the suite of fantastic appliances we were able to get thanks to Abt for giving us a credit for a return of all these cardboard ones below.

Heh, I remember the evening I noticed the kitchen had no drawers.  I was flipping through paint chips and checking out the photos online when I finally looked, really looked.  I remember saying to Mike, "hey, uh, ya know, um, there are no drawers in this kitchen we're buying."  He looked at me all strange, like an alien had just popped out of my mouth and said, "what, seriously?  That can't be."  I showed him the pictures and together we sighed.  Siiiiggghhhhhh........

Yeah.  Look at that.  No drawers.  This is one of the original listing photos.  Here's the other:

It shows well in the photos.  And it looks huge too!  Those are obviously the only two things they were going for though as once you get in it, it's small, not useful, not well-planned or planned at all actually, and not an efficient kitchen.  I won't even go near mentioning quality because, forget it.

I mean, it's not terrible nor a disaster zone, and you probably think I'm crazy for thinking this kitchen sucks, but it does.  I remember calling around for homeowner's insurance quotes and one woman I spoke to got all a-twitter over these photos saying "oh yeah, that's not a contractor grade kitchen, that's fantastic!"  I said to her those cabinets are not even made of wood.  She didn't believe me.  We didn't go with them.

So yeah.  I haven't mentioned the kitchen at all because, well, because obviously something like a kitchen is a huge undertaking.  Mike's big plan is to redo the kitchen, possibly knocking out the wall to my office, so he's a No Small Plans kind of guy.  There are ways to redo a kitchen that aren't so expensive and brutal, like Ikea cabinets for example.  My folks recently got some from there and they like them quite a lot.

In the mean time, there are so many things wrong.  The dishwasher is across the room, not next to the sink.  Open anything and there's a major traffic problem.  Right, no drawers.  Cabinets are hard to reach for shorty me.  The space within them is not practical.  Two cookie sheet cabinets?  Why?  Not enough storage.  There's only room for one person to do anything in there.  Only one itty bitty tiny area to prep so if Mike is in there making his yummy breakfasts, I can't get to plates, cooking pans, the dishwasher, the stove or microwave, nor prep any of my contributions to the meal.  Toss in a large sniffing crumb-snatching cheese-loving three-legged vulture under foot and it's useless.

My mom sent me an idea for a cart with drawers and at the time I honestly thought it would work.  It's not my favorite style or look, or price, but Mike went absolutely gaga for it, so I ordered it.

It's awful.  I dislike it immensely.  I venture to say I hate it.  My mom feels bad for suggesting it, so now I feel bad that she feels bad.  But Mike looooooves it and will not let me get rid of it.  Ugh.  To this day, almost a year later, our silverware is still sitting out because even the smallest silverware tray will not fit in the damn thing.  The whole intended purpose for the cart.  It does hold some stuff, but not very well.  I truly hope nothing dire befalls this thing on accident one day.  Ahem.

Last fall I did repaint the kitchen since it was that charming dog vomit yellow color.  It's now a very subtle creamy color, Gravel.  A placeholder.  Oh and yes, we have rugs everywhere for Hailey now.  She is still too scared of trying to walk on tile and hardwood floors.  That's fine, please, anything to help her.

The room itself is in the middle of the first floor with no windows (well, there was a window but the flipper covered over it, the actual window still there as we see it walking down the gangway) so it's already dark.  Add in darker colored fakey wood cabinets in a cheapy semi-traditional style and it's just a black hole, sucking down the center of the house.  In some cases darker colors do recede and make a room look larger but contrary what designer folks and magazine editors are touting all about town these days, that's not always the case.

The other night I suggested to Mike that I paint the cabinets.  He was shockingly open to the idea, an idea to keep us afloat in toleration until we can redo the kitchen.  This Old House has a lengthy tutorial on how to do it, Rustoleum makes a pre-packaged kit in a variety of colors, but there are also plenty of DIY tutorials out there on the interwebs as well.

Hopefully I'll have the patience to be all precise and well, patient with the extended, painstaking process.  I suppose just knowing that anything will be a help, that should carry me through all right.  So, stay tuned!