all that glitters

When we came for our first visit to our 1949 bungalow, my dh and I were quite disappointed that previous owners had not updated the kitchen.  The kitchen features its original wooden cabinets, complete with bookshelves, the vent below the sink, the ceiling fan,  and a heating duct taking up the cabinet above the fridge.  The cabinet's 60 year old drawers continue to leave sawdust in the drawers below.  The primary advantage of the original cabinetry is that they thwarted little active people from reorganizing the drawers' contents because they are so cumbersome to open.

Fast-forward almost 7 years and we are glad we didn't purchase a renovated kitchen for more reasons than I will post about this time!  What pushed us to renovate the kitchen at this time is that, whenever it is -20 degrees C or colder, we need to place a fan in front of the lower cabinetry to circulate air and, hopefully, prevent the dishwasher's water pipes from freezing (as it did in 2008).  The renovation will be quite significant including removing and re-insulating the inner walls.

Enough about the history of this reno!  The demolition will commence on May 10!  We are expecting to be kitchen-less for about 5 weeks.  Can you sense that I am delighted?

We decided to create a retro-influenced 1949ish to about 1952 kitchen so that it blends in with the other characteristics of the house that will be very functional.  The plan is that we will have plain white-faced cabinetry (laminate) which mimics the style of the existing cabinetry, including the rounded bookshelves.  The "wavy" valance is being abandoned for a more neutral valance and we will be installing bulkheads above the upper cabinets to shoot work light onto the counter-top.  We'll have schoolhouse general lighting (mainly because it is as appropriately retro that we can obtain locally) in the "dining" and "kitchen" areas.

The plan is: it will glitter.  We are using Cambria quartz for the countertop.  The anticipated grey retro-looking LSI flooring will dominate the "dining" area and, in the kitchen area, the grey LSI flooring is expected to feature a cut-out of LSI's black sparkly chips.  We are hoping to use 1X1 black sparkly tiles (but haven't selected the main tile) for backsplash purposes.  All this remains tentative as we have been waiting ~ urgh ~ for about 4 or more weeks to get a flooring and tile quote.

Meanwhile, I am starting to play with colour.  I am not attracted to yellow but that cupcake swatch from Tonic Living is sweet so I am playing with blue paint-tones to complement that swatch.  I need to go look for paint-tones that would go with the cherry swatch.  What do you think: cupcake or cherry swatch?