Country Fare: Sally's Place (Kitchen)

As I look out of my window, I am so thankful that I live in a state where I know there are more good weather days than bad, and this, indeed, is a glorious day. I am in a rush to go outdoors, so I will post more pictures of the lake house, dress and begin the task of cleaning flower and garden beds. Yipee!!!

The next three pictures are a few I took later as things are always changing. This corner is dedicated to my mother, so the photos are of her from childhood to grandmother. Again, I shopped for frames in my closets, spray painted them all flat black and then printed pictures to fit the frames. The book is one I made for guests so they could see the house transformation, and the lamp is a hand me down from my son's room as a boy. The desk and chair are pieces from my husband's family.

These are additional shots of the family room complete with a map of the lake, and the living room that serves as a dining room when we have a crowd.

Now we can move to the kitchen. I shopped my closets for the crocks, the bowl and basket.

This is what met us the first time we entered the house after about a 10 years absence. My mother did not leave it this way, so all of items on the counter tops were quite a surprise. Years ago there was roof damage after a tornado, and while the roof had been repaired the ceiling had not as you can see in the photo. The indoor/outdoor carpet was the hardest to remove. It took days and days of scraping and sanding.

We expanded the opening from the kitchen to the living room to support an 8 foot stainless steel bar. When we removed wall board, my husband and son discovered carpenter ants, so we had to rebuild a corner of the house, but that was the only room with water or critter damage. We were so lucky.

We loaded the cabinets (all custom to the space and in really good shape) and brought them home with us, so I could repaint. It took me all winter that year, but I love the outcome. I also scraped and sanded the hardware and knobs and repainted those as well. We saved the counter tops and used Rust-Oleum Countertop Transformations. The sink is original to the house and required a bit of elbow grease to clean it up, but the faucet is a new clearance find. Since our budget was almost nonexistent, I decided to use inexpensive white tile leftover from the bathroom projects with just a bit of natural tile as a border. The armoire serves as a pantry, and the stainless steel island was a bargain find. The expansion of the bar space gives this area the best view of the lake.