Look what's happening

 

When we were in Michigan in August, the house we stayed in had a U shaped banquette area. I loved it and so did the girls, it was so cozy sitting in it. I racked (it's not "wracked" I looked it up) my brain for places in my house to put banquette seating (that won't cost a lot = always my limitation).

 

These cabinets in the pictures below were really annoying. The lower cabinets were for wine (I thought you had to chill wine? What do I know.). Matt and I even took a saw to them a while ago to see if we could hack the wine part out and just put up shelves but no dice. So the bottom cabinet was useless. It's where we kept our phone book, and we don't even use the phone book.

 

The upper cabinets were nice for our cereal, breadmaker and other odds and ends, but it was so tall and deep that I always had to climb on the counter to get anything out of there. Definitely something I could get rid of and find places for our stuff.

 

 

 

Useless cabinets and this counter always just collected crap.

For the record, I spray painted that old cabinet door with chalkboard paint like way before pinterest was invented. Go me.

So, I ripped out the cabinets (myself, ooo rah), patched, sanded and painted the holes from the cabinets. I found extra flooring in our attic and hired a guy to come over and install flooring where the cabinet was, and install two canned lights.

We randomly have a giant space on that side of the kitchen. I think at one point we had an eat-in kitchen (like every other house in this neighborhood), but then previous owners added on the big doorway and the porch room. So that space is still big enough for a narrow table (just need to find one) and a backless bench for the other side. And then I have my own (cheap) verson of banquette seating. It's not exactly what I had in mind because that, of course, would run me about $1000.

The perspective of this picture is of me standing in front of our fridge with my back to the rest of the kitchen. The other room you see through the doorway on the right is the dining room.

It'll be great to have a place for the girls to eat where I can see them while I am working in the kitchen. Or snack, or draw,or do their homework, Matt can grade papers, whatever.
I spend 94.564% of my day in the kitchen and I can't keep my eye on the girls when they are eating because they eat in the dining room or on the porch room - out of my line of vision. I usually eat with them for a bit, but they are slow eaters and sometimes I am more distracting for them than if I leave.

Now, I get to pick out some fabric for cushions to sew on my new sewing machine. And I need a long narrow table. That's going to be hard to find.

So, that's my project. It's been fun.