Before and After {kitchen}

Monday morning here, and I bring you another Before and After tour from our lovely apartment.

This is our kitchen, the room with the least natural light, but made up for by amount of space (at least in comparison to what I have had before in China) . What id does receive comes from that tiny window that is actually filtered through the small laundry balcony it looks onto. There is a door on both ends of the kitchen, which also let in a small amount of secondary natural light.

As you can see from the Before picture, the cubboards are a bright, tangerine orange which could work for some people or maybe someone with a more modern sense of taste, but for me were a little too much. So, I covered them with contact paper I had brought back from the States with crossed fingers (knowing I was coming back to orange cupboards but not having seen them yet). The contact paper worked great and I have been so happy with the result.

We had to add a lot of storage, so put in two shelves above the sink as well as two hanging racks for drying dishes, and on the opposite wall, a large white cupboard from a secondhand alley in Qingdao, as well as a utility shelf from IKEA to place our oven, microwave, and baking pans, etc. on. (the oven is a story in itself. It must be plugged directly into a wall outlet to receive enough power, but there are no outlets along the floor- only high near the ceiling, but the cord is short, so it had to be placed high enough on a shelf to reach the outlet. Sheesh. And that outlet was also the only available outlet for the refrigerator, so another cord had to be re-routed along the floor from another way high-up-in-the-sky outlet on the other end of the kitchen. I'd love to talk to the people who wired this place)

The counter tops may come up to my knees, and the water has to be blasted full force (which because of the mismatched size of sink to length of spout, causes of a lot of water sprayage on the pants and counter area...) in order to trip the hot water heater, but even with these small (and they are small) little glitches, I really enjoy this little kitchen. And I have enjoyed making it come to life, or to a place that reflects my sensibilities and tastes a little more and makes me feel at home. Putting it to good use is the best way to do that too, and we do so each and every day.

Before and After {guest room}

I posted this picture a few days after we had moved in. It is the guest room/office and for awhile it has been the catch-all place for everything left unpacked or without a proper place just yet.

But I am so happy to say that we are making progress and it is becoming more the space I pictured it to be, with a few small details left to go (like paint on the walls and chair, one last box of books to find a home for, cushions and pillows for the window seats... maybe)

Redoing a room when you move is for me an ever-evolving dance of repurposing the old, and knowing what new things need to be purchased. I may not love the filing shelf as a bedside table, but when you need a new bed and sheets, well you just have to make do with the ugly shelf!

I did have a lovely time getting all my yarn out and dreaming of the coming year and it's many projects. Then there was a sudden light bulb of an idea to use an old map of China that had been ruined in many places but I didn't throw away yet- and fill my needlepoint looms with the good patches of places we've been and lived.

I was thrilled to be able to bring back this old Remington typewriter from a thrift store this summer. The kids have already enjoyed typing many short, sweet letters to grandparents and friends. I however am not so sure about the hand winding of the ribbon when the size of spool I bought did not quite work on this model.

And then there is our guest bed, which houses a trundle bed underneath and has already been used once... ready for many more visitors! It is the most comfortable bed in our house and it takes some measure of control for me not to creep in there at night when my hips feel a bit sore from the fossilized board they call a  mattress in my own room.

This room, with it's lovely light and deep window seats and now organized, cheerful shelves and soft bed is my favorite place in the house just now. More pictures of the other spaces I've been working on to come.