Bon Appetit; Kitchen Remodel; Guest

Jason and Anita of Fun and VJ's have been working on revamping their house and are doing a great job.  Check out their perfect new kitchen!

We are having a week-long celebration here at the Sow's Ear - celebrating our first year in this old house. So I'd like to share with you some of my favourite images from the renovations done in the past year.

As some of you may know, I was not at all keen about buying this place. It was Jason's romantic notions of owning a Queenslander which led us here.  A year on, I'm definitely more at peace about living here but I don't love this house as much as Jason does. It is actually quite ironic that it's me and not Jason who lovingly writes a blog about this house (he is my number 1 blogging fan though). I call blogging my therapy and you know what, I've become fonder of the house because of it.

Today, I'm showing you photographs of the kitchen wall which was built to accommodate the new kitchen cabinetry. We had a builder do this part of the job - done effortlessly compared to an agonising Jason DIY.

As you can see from the photos above, this wall was lined with short, shallow cabinets which had been removed by the time I took the photographs.

Renovating an older home illustrates how building standards have changed so dramatically. You would never see such a shallow space used for cupboards anymore. They were about 30cm wide! What cornflake box would fit in a cupboard that size!

Also, see how much room from where the top of the cabinets ended to the ceiling - lots of potential storage space!

There  was also a small casement window in this area. We believe, the original bathroom would have been in this spot. And that's Number 2 son picking his nose, I would say.

These renders were drawn by the cabinet-maker of the proposed kitchen. We were happy with these plans and I don't think we changed anything. This is exactly what I envisioned for this particular space.

We probably could have moved the sink to the island bench to obtain the perfect functioning triangle, but I liked the idea of keeping the sink near the window. Call me old fashioned.

The builder's apprentice building the wall.

Old casement window removed on the otherside and new VJ boards added to cover the gap.

Below are photos of how this particular space looks like today. Ah, the magic of building.

Cooking area where the old casement window used to be.

A few more centimetres of wall allowed us to have wall-to-ceiling storage and cabinetry.

Yesterday, we were showing a friend some before photos of our house (only because they were interested - we attempt not to bore our friends).

Blogging about our renovations has given us a great collection of photos of the house which we otherwise wouldn't have taken.

I've been trying to take after shots in the exact position of the before shots. It is very motivating, especially as we are waiting to do our next large project which is Number 1 son's bedroom. I can't wait!

To date, we have renovated the front entry, lounge room and kitchen. This is the first before and after I have collaged together:

The before shot is from our second inspection of the property last year. It is the only before shot we have. Most of the storage in the photos was freestanding and went with the previous owners.

As you can, see we didn't change the layout dramatically - just tweaked it so it would function better and have more bench and storage space. The bi-fold windows were also added to allow us to open up the space when needed. Jason said he will definitely paint the windows a gloss white when the weather improves (it's been raining heaps).

The fridge obstructing the doorway leading onto the deck was also very bad feng shui  - the couple who owned the house were divorcing. Perhaps if they had moved the fridge, things could have been different...

I love it!  

I love the new cabinetry and the island is beautiful!  

Don't you agree?