Finally.......

It has been a long time coming for me. Almost 7 years and I was more than ready.

I have a new kitchen........Finally, Cabinets to put things in and maybe I can get my things out of storage! Yay!

There is so much that needs to be done here with so little cash. Last Summer the Shankster and I tried to do as much as we could without it. Then we decided we would borrow the cash and do some things that needed to be done. Here at the house we need a heating system. There is none....nuff said. We also need a driveway. Either dug out and replaced with concrete or blacktop, or dug out and new gravel all the way around. We can hardly get up or down the hill some days, with rainy or snowy days the worst. We got new windows but still need insulation and siding. Those are just a few things that we tried to get estimates on last year. All was too much out of our price range, even after trying (and failing) to get a loan. We have done little things in the house since being here...like redo part of the bathroom the first year we were here but it needs done again....(it was a have to quick fix for mom) and we painted "our TV room" and got a new stove and fridge and carpet in those two rooms in 2007.

So after all the estimates of ideas of things to do failed we decided to just fix up our 63' VW. That seemed to cost more than what we had also. So we thought we just wouldn't do anything.

Then the old pantry in the kitchen decided it wanted to fall apart. The insides were ok, but the outside was falling off. It had been for some time but I managed to hammer it back into place each time. So we just thought we would get a new pantry. We went searching. Found a few and the least expensive we could find that was even partly comparable to this one was about $1320.
I thought Homie would fall out of his chair when we told him that. Of course he got out the hammer again. But quickly realized that had already been done to death.
We decided that "B" might be able to build us and outside for the pantry and just stick the innards back in. That was fine and he could do it but the materials for that was close to $400.
So we looked for some reason on the internet and found a place that had cabinets. It was about 2 hours from here, so a 4 hour round trip, but so glad we went. We found some cabinets we could afford and even though we had to pick them up ourselves, it was worth it. We had fun driving back and forth several times...... We ended up spending, for all cabinets with a pantry, sink & faucet close to what the one pantry was going to cost us! I thought it was a great deal and one we could afford. Or at the least what we had left on credit! :)

So I have to share some before, during and after pictures of our new kitchen journey. "B" and the Shankster did so much in making sure I was happy with the end result. "B" put up all the cabinets and put in the countertop. The Shankster did all the tile work. This is the kind of work "B" does for a living, but a first for the Shankster. We had fun picking out tile for this job, got excited and then disappointed when we found out some can cost an outrageous price. But then excited again when we got what we did and found out that even though we had no idea what we were doing, got enough for our project and it turned out beautiful...if I do say so myself. Our only splurge was the faucet and the 2 tiles that match said faucet.

Enjoy the slide show!