Before and happily after: The Acorn House Kitchen
If you have a 1970's kitchen, do not despair!!!!
The following posts are about how my darling husband and I remodeled our Acorn Kitchen.
This is a before picture of the Acorn kitchen. Notice the Mexican tile. It was hideous!
This the same area of the Acorn kitchen in a After shot.
Notice the soffits, the boxed in area above the cabinets, are gone. This allows more space for storage or showing pretty dishes or collections.
These are the same cabinets. You can stain or paint your old cabinets or put on new fronts.
Look again, did you notice the cabinets were lowered 3 1/2 inches? You can still put a large jar of rice on the counter, a can opener, or bread box and a short woman under 5 feet can REACH all the shelves!!!!
I have no idea why men put cabinets in so high. Did you know the "standard height" for cabinets in a kitchen from the 1950's to now has changed by almost 6 inches?
I say it's time women spoke up and made things a little easier to reach.
And, nobody noticed the cabinets were lower unless I mentioned it!!!!
Same dishwasher but different front. How many fronts does your dishwasher have?
Probably 4. Un-screw the door of your dishwasher at the top. Look inside the open slot. Most companies have an extra front for the dishwasher. Be careful, the metal sheet has sharp corners. In the before picture you notice it is white. But if you take it out and turn it over the other side was black. A second sheet of an older dishwasher from the 70's or 80's made have been Avocado green on one side and Harvest gold on the other. We did the same thing with the trash compactor. We just turned the white metal door over to the black side.
The Acorn kitchen was very small so we first put an apartment size table for breakfast under the window. Not having enough storage or counter top to work, I found a way to make some.
We added cabinets under the window and put matching counter top on them. I not only had drawers for my Tupperware and linens, but I had a separate drawer for bread and chips.
The open shelves on the right were for napkins and paper plates. The open shelves on the left were under the coffee pot and were for coffee filters, coffee can, and coffee syrups.
I might add that the cabinets were put under the bay window. I enjoyed looking out at my gardens and the birds and at the same time the lower height was perfect for me to make cookies with my grandchildren.
We tore the kitchen down to the studs.
You think you can't remodel your kitchen? Tear down, trash, and clean up will save you a lot of money if you do it yourself.
Kitchen counter under the window at Christmas time. I find these Santa mugs at garage sales in the summer and fill them with candies for the grandkids and visitors.
We did have to get a new stove, new sink and new light fixtures.
I painted this kitchen a soft blue. My everyday dishes, as shown in some pictures above the cabinets, are yellow and blue. The blue walls match and I added yellow Frankoma pottery for accents.
The new flooring was a laminate floor that "clicked" together like a puzzle.
The counter under the window also served as a buffet.
The above picture was where the former owners had their fridge. It was so tiny and I had a massive black fridge. I designed this cabinet. The cabinets on the bottom were two pull out drawers for pots, pans, and lids. The long drawer was for silverware. The white appliance is my breadmaker and the silver one is the microwave. Above those are the cookbooks and recipe box. The cabinet above stored the crock pots and appliances I didn't use everyday.
More to come! Keep following as we tear up more rooms!
