New Kitchen

One of my serious dislikes about my new home was the kitchen cabinets, as shown above.. I thought they were *seriously ugly*. But if they have been functional I could have painted them or done something to them to live with them. But they were also pretty useless. A very small number of cabinets. Only *one* base cabinet with a single drawer. Lots of "dead" filler space on either side of the stove. I have a nice high ceiling in the kitchen with plenty of space for cabinets, but the cabinets were short and stubby. So I decided to just bite the bullet and have all new cabinets put in right away, before I even bothered trying to unpack any boxes!

I ended up working with Oxley Cabinets of Jacksonville. They were great to work with and were very affordable. I got new cabinets to replace my old ones, new countertops, and I added "stacker" cabinets on top of the new replacements, and additional cabinets on the blank wall of the kitchen which gave me much more storage space as well as more countertop! I also got cabinets on either side of the stove rather than dead filler.

What a difference in looks. When I saw how lovely it was turning out I couldn't even bear to reuse the old stainless steel sink I had before. I didn't like it in the first place, and it was dingy and dirty looking, so I went out and bought a cast-iron sink enameled in white and I love it so much better!

Best of all I got to finally unpack all those boxes that had been cluttering up my kitchen for 6 weeks now, and was able to set up a table and chairs. I also replaced the light fixture over the table, which had been hideously ugly before. So for the first time since I moved in I was actually able to sit at a REAL TABLE and eat a meal!

So here is the breakfast I made for myself to celebrate. It was great sitting there and eating it while I looked out at the birds in the yard. I saw a red-bellied woodpecker, which is a new yard bird for me. I used to get red bellies at my old New Jersey home, but didn't know if I would see them around here.