Multivoltine Monday

multivoltine ~ having several broods in one season

I know that this might be a little hard to believe, but the kitchen is…

(wait for it)

…FINISHED!

Feel free to throw confetti and have a happy dance. The contractor was in last week, put the trim up around the tops of the cupboards and the new door on the cupboard beside the stove. Done, done, done!

It’s been a long (super long) haul, but I have to admit it’s been worth it. You can have more than one person in the kitchen at a time and not trip over them. It looks so pretty, and it’s organized, and while because of the shape and style of the cupboards I don’t know that I’ve got more cupboard space, I definitely have a lot more counter space.

So…let’s start with the sink that looks out over our fabulous backyard. Here’s the before picture (more or less):

I really wish I’d taken before pictures before we cleaned everything up, because trust me, the counter and window ledge was never that clean. It was pretty cluttered, which was one of the things we wanted to get a handle on. And here’s the sink counter now:

You notice we’ve left the curtains off – we really like the extra light. And while I may add another plant on the window ledge, we really want to keep it as uncluttered as possible. I can picture brackets to hang plants from on either side of the window, but the hubby can’t so we’ll have to see who wins that debate.

Going to the right, we go to the counter beside the sink:

Because of the placement of the dishwasher, there was a lot of wasted space in this corner. But this was one of the things the renovation dealt with admirably.

The star of this corner is the lower cabinet, which opens up to a lazy susan on both levels (sorry, no inside picture). And moving the dishwasher to the end of the wall gave us extra counter space.

Moving on to the right of the sink, we have the refrigerator/stove side of the kitchen:

I really regret not getting a proper before picture. You can see the lines on the walls where the cupboards were, and there was enough space between the stove and the counter for our tall, narrow recycling and garbage bins. The lower cupboard was another great waste of space, and really hard to get to.

The new countertop is wider than the old one, which means we lost the space for the bins beside the stove. The picture’s kind of dark, but there’s a narrow, bi-fold door beside the stove that lets us into a huge space that’s perfect for storing my rarely used appliances – the George Formans, indoor barbecue, and indoor grill on the top shelf, and things like the blender, food processor, and spiralizer on the bottom shelf.

We used to have the microwave on the counter in the corner where the toaster oven is now – it’s so much handier to have it above the stove. And it comes with a built in hood fan, which we never had before. Because the fridge is in an alcove now, the cupboard above it is much deeper. It holds both my crock pots, and my collection of baskets (that I rarely use, but couldn’t seem to part with).

And finally, we come to my favourite section of the kitchen, the coffee counter.

Again, the picture doesn’t do justice to the former ugliness. Along that bare wall was more or less a bookcase with doors that we used as a pantry, and above it were shelves that held the appliances we now have in that corner cabinet beside the stove. It was a really tight fit if you were making toast or coffee, or wanted anything from the cupboards.

And look at it now:

Even with the coffee maker, tea kettle, cookie jars, and soda stream on the counter, there’s still plenty of room to work. The small, upper drawer on the left holds tea, and the coffee pods for the coffee maker. The larger drawer below that holds most of my baking accessories, the one on the bottom the rest of my baking stuff, cat food, and spill-over from the pantry.

On the right we have cutlery on the top, bread, hot chocolate, and excess tea in the next drawer down, and our brand new set of T-fal pots and pans in the bottom drawer.

The kitchen is officially open for business!