When my sister gutted her whole kitchen last year she set up all her camping kitchen gear on her porch and “roughed it” for the 8 weeks. A crock pot was her very best friend lol
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I think we both have cozy and traditional mid-century homes, right? Mine is 1962 or '63. Your home is charming.
We have the downstairs bar and a toaster oven. A few weeks more of limited cooking will be tedious, but survivable. One kiddo already subsists almost entirely on Cheerios and chicken nuggets and the other one would be happy enough with ham and cheese sandwiches for every other meal.
Okay, here are the best ‘before’ pictures I can manage. Please excuse the mess, my family’s usual chaos has only multiplied in some areas as it abated in others.
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How funny, I think my sister’s house is your house’s exact layout, too.
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Oh, how funny! My stepmom had almost the exact same house, too. It must have been a really popular floorplan. Three bedrooms, two and a half baths. Perfect ranch home for the family with 2.5 kids, lol.
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There was good reason for the popularity of ranch homes and later split-levels…family friendly!
The wood trim and doors were that maple color as well.
Are you replacing your cabinets or having them redone? Our cabinets are in good condition and I absolutely love the corian countertops, even more than granite…so easy to clean, hides messes, and just buff out any nicks or stains. But, I am pricing out having it painted or refaced as I don’t like the honey oak. I do like that my husband cooks… 
The table is there temporarily until the kitchen island can be built. There will be room to eat at the island. The dining room is right across from where the table is since it is an open concept layout. The huge paint color sampler is there for us to pick out exterior paint and trim. Too many choices!
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Your kitchen reminds me of my dad’s. I love Corian, but quartz had more options and is almost as easy. So we went with that.
It’s a full gut, and they’re taking out the walls above the cabinets and replacing them with cabinets that go all the way up. The closet behind the fridge is going to come forward until it’s even with that weird section of wall. The counter peninsula is going away and the counter will extend almost to the back door. The stove will be between the back door and the sink, and the wall opposite the window will have the ovens, a 48" countertop, a pantry, and the fridge. I have it drawn out somewhere… 
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Yes–when we redo the kitchen, quartz will probably be my choice as well.
That is a huge remodel! I am glad your family is not demanding three full course meals! But, once it is done, it will be much more suited to your family and style. I love the before pictures because they show how far you had to come!
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I love all those classic wooden kitchens! Our house had a 1980s foil plywood kitchen which was just completely worn out, and a wooden kitchen just wasn’t in the budget this time either. We did pick much higher quality materials though - the kitchen is MDF, the fronts acrylic and the countertop composite / quartz. Really happy with that countertop in particular. After nearly two years, not a tiny scratch or dent in sight and it’s so easy to clean. It’s just the two of us and we try to be careful, but we’re both naturally a bit clumsy and our kitchen is used intensively, we cook from scratch every single day.
We went without a kitchen for a few weeks, but we did have a fridge available during the entire time, as well as a kettle and the coffee machine obviously. During those weeks without a kitchen, we ate a lot of sandwiches and salad, ramen, cans of hotdogs that we heated in a bowl of boiling water, microwave meals at work, take-out once or twice a week. Like you, we tackled the kitchen last, and by that time we were so tired of take-out. I didn’t realize until we were done that I should have bought a crockpot. Due to delays, it took another 5 weeks for the kitchen to be completely functional, but the first thing they installed was the oven which made life a lot easier.
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Our house is a 1950 cape, pretty small, 4 rooms down and two up. We were lucky that when we bought the house in 2007, the kitchen had been renovated in 2004 and it’s held up well. But the awkward layout and little counterspace has driven me crazy. It will still be small, 10 x 11, but a U shape rather than two Ls on opposides of the room.
4 days of mess this time and we can cook again in a partially demoed kitchen.
I think.we have to take down the corner cabinet, the old plaster is falling out from behind. Not a good sign. I don’t want to jinx anything, but we have not run into any unexpected expensive fixes. And that’s with two new doors cut throufh the outer walls.
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I realized today that I have no idea how to pick out a wall oven. 
Someone needs to revoke my ‘ADULT’ card.
It’s a 30" wide cabinet and the current opening is 24" X 48", but can be enlarged slightly, if needed. So, do I get a 24" or 27" oven? Looks like most 24" ovens need a 22"-23" wide opening, and the 27" ovens need 24.5"-26" wide openings.
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I had the same issue with my refrigerator! I measured the opening at least twice and then went to the Lowe’s site and used their appliance calculator. I say go with the biggest you can fit into the space!
Make sure you have room for any insulation and the fan below as well. The appliance calculator takes all that into account plus, to be sure, we had the sales person at Lowe’s double check for us.
I got a quick snap last night of the exterior of the house after the first coats were on! Looks like a totally different house! My craft room is where the light is on…of course! I am always in my room! 
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It looks soooo good! I love the changes you made to the exterior.
I need to ask my builder how much they can trim out of the pre-cut opening. I think it’s designed to be cut larger, because the current height definitely won’t accommodate a double oven. Anyway, found two ovens that look to be adequate, one at 24" and one at 27". There were, like, three options at 24" wide, and only the really basic one gets decent reviews. 
At 27" you actually get options. Kicking myself for not figuring this all out back when we redesigned to kitchen. It’s crazy, though, that there is precious little difference in price between a basic 24" oven and a fancy 27" with 25% more volume and lots of bells and whistles.
It is weird, isn’t it? My theory is that this type of thing happens not because the smaller one with fewer upgrades costs about the same to make, but because fewer people want it so it takes up space in the warehouse and the customer pays for that.
Our cabinets are only going to allow for a quite small fridge when we replace this one (the last major appliance in the kitchen to replace) and I’m afraid our options are going to be the between the most basic apartment fridges with the possibility of a ridiculously expensive “mancave” option. Of course the prices for most or all of these things is going to go way up here very soon.
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It looks great Linda!!!
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You might want to consider where and how you need a fridge. We thought we needed the largest fridge offered but with our new space on four levels, we found it made sense to have a couple of smaller refrigerators. In our den area, the fridge mostly holds drinks and some cold snacks like cheese, fruit, etc. The garage fridge holds more drinks but also has plenty of space for large leftovers or meals as well as frozen fast meals. The freezer in the garage holds most of the meats and veggies. We are getting a very small fridge near our guest room to hold drinks and snacks as well. It has saved us from constantly going into the kitchen fridge for drinks or snacks so it is mainly for what it needs to be for us: a cooking/meals fridge.
To be honest, a couple of smaller fridges cost a lot less than a huge one.If you drink a lot of wine, it would be worth it to save towards one that has an icemaker as well. We don’t entertain as much any more so we just use the garage fridge to hold a couple of bottles.
I know it sounds a bit excessive to have four refrigerators, but all together, they are more functional for us and cost about the same as our old huge monster fridge!
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Ice maker for wine?
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We had limited space in our kitchen, and decided to go for an apartment-sized fridge in the kitchen. The kitchen salespeople said we were mad (and suggested tearing down a wall instead, which sounded much worse than a smaller kitchen to us). But we don’t regret it at all. We’ve got our old fridge/freezer in the garage and that works for us. Of course we’re just the two of us and we’re surrounded by shops. I’m assuming in the woods in Montana you don’t go shopping as often as we do and you need a lot more space. But depending on the layout of your house, it could make sense to have a big “storage” fridge elsewhere and a smaller fridge in the kitchen for the things you like to have on hand. For us it works to walk down to the garage once a day to get the ingredients for that night’s dinner.
I don’t have a fridge anywhere near my craft room, but the other day I was debating whether it’s a bit excessive to have an electric kettle here, so I don’t have to go downstairs for tea 
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There are still a few companies that make their appliances here and source components locally. The two ovens I’m looking at are made in the USA of a minimum of 70% domestic parts.
But, yeah, there’s a lot of talk that people should, if they can, do the replacements/repairs they need now before supply chains see big disruptions. I’m laid up for a couple days (toenail injury), so I’ll be making a list of everything I absolutely need to buy to complete our remodel and ordering as much of it as possible.
Good luck with the fridge search. I haven’t had a problem with either Whirlpool I have, but I cheered when my Samsung French door (pullout freezer) finally died and I could replace it. Nothing but problems from that one.
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It is more of an bar fridge…used to store wine and make ice for alcoholic drinks. We used to have one when we entertained a lot and had a room with a built in bar and beer tap. We sure made a lot of slushy drinks back then. I do have friends that like their wine super cold and ask for cubes, but to me, that is sacrilege!
@Immaculata I am also thinking of getting a tea kettle in my crafting room.
@tendstowardschaos I have had no issues with Whirlpool either. I read that there were a lot of complaints about Samsung and some for LG so we stuck to Whirlpool.
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I’m sorry if I was confusing; we will have to have a small fridge, because that is all our cabinets will hold. We have two now. One in the mudroom for beverages and leftovers. I’m just concerned that we’ll be limited to a crappy apartment fridge or something ridiculously expensive marketed to some esoteric fridge spots. Like when we replaced the mudroom fridge we needed what they call a “garage” fridge, because our mudroom isn’t climate controlled and at low temps a normal fridge will stop working. All that were available were these crazy expensive ones for the kind of garages that are showrooms/hangouts or outdoor kitchens. BUT we later learned you can get a special part installed in certain other models that will make them work in low temps. All of those are the most basic of fridges.
TheMisterT would like one with an ice maker so we will hope for that and budget for the expense of getting that plumbed.
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