After several days of blood, sweat and tears (literally), we finally have a fully functional kitchen! Let’s start with the “before” pictures, although to be technical, these are “during” since before would have just been an empty room. The pictures are taken from the left of the room to the right, if that helps you to follow it better.
Before/During #1 with the appliances on the floor
Before/During #2 Don’t you love the peach and red paint combo?
Before/During #3 Please excuse the “food and beverage counter”
So, how about that red paint? WOW. I’m all for a nice red kitchen, but that color was painful. As you look at these take a moment to remember I have a very curious one year old who loved all the appliances, wires and other life threatening things that we had on the floor for the past week.  Continuing on with this drama, we live on the third floor so needless to say it was not a simple task for my husband and a friend to carry all of this to our apartment in the first place.  The next step was to paint, which also required moving things around and getting into unique positions to reach all of the places. Finally, my husband and this same friend put the kitchen up and we ended up with one extra cabinet that we couldn’t find a place for; however, we still weren’t done. Upon connecting the water, M discovered a leak which is minor and still needs to be fixed. We also had to wait for an electrician to come connect the stove….but it’s good to know people as M’s brother just happened to have a friend who is a master electrician. Finally, everything is done. We still have some touch up painting to do and we actually need a new oven. We discovered that this oven is very old and even the outside gets super hot when being used, so this would not be a good idea with a toddler. Granted, we could keep him out of the kitchen, but I don’t see that as being very realistic.
So without further delay, here are the “after” pictures!
After #1
After #2
After #3
Now all we need is a freezer…..and our household goods shipment…..and a table….AND ON, AND ON, AND ON! 
But until then, here’s to having a sink outside of the bathroom, a refrigerator and an oven!
nice post. thanks for sharing this blog with us.
Thank you and thanks for stopping by!
Congrats! I know how good this feels. We didn’t have a kitchen when we first moved into our house and boy, was it tough! Way to go, you.
Thank you! I have never been more happy to have a kitchen!
Don’t act too excited or people will expect you to cook all the time!
Haha….I would love to! However, at the moment, I am lacking some important items….such as, pots, pans, utensils, plates, bowls!
Sounds like my kitchen except I’ve been here for nearly a year
I bet you have a corkscrew though!
Sadly no! But I think I must purchase one (and the bottle of wine) tonight.
Flat-warming - perfect!
Exactly!
Woooohoooo! Enjoy it, it means even more now because you had to wait for it. That’s what I told myself.
Love the kitchen! Bowls available at IKEA … I LOVE their big stainless steel bowls! Hope all is going well with repatriation.
Oh we so need to go to Ikea! Things are going mostly well but I think I’ve fallen into a slump….not motivated to write (which must be obvious), not motivated to do much of anything except what must be done. Trying to rise above it. Great hearing from you!