Cozying up the Kitchen and Solving the Microwave Dilemma

Not doing any major renovations leaves time to ponder the smaller things. As you may know we previously removed our 3'x5' kitchen island which seated 2-3 in favour of our table to seat four to six.  Although my honey preferred the island, with much prodding he gave in to me and I absolutely love it.  Half my night is spent in the kitchen cooking or doing the dishes during the winter and so I wanted to make it feel even cozier. 

Many people who have kitchens that they desperately want to renovate, endure poor lighting just as we had in our old kitchen you see here and it is not necessary. You can add under cabinet lighting that you can buy off the shelf of your local renovation store that plugs in to the nearest outlet for the most inexpensive solution and then you can do what I did and add lamps to any unused surface you can find. Although we have both task and ambient light in the kitchen all on dimmers, I wanted more lighting and ended up moving the living room lamps to our large deep window ledge and what a difference with how cozy they make the kitchen feel.  When they are turned on they actually provide some more privacy as well as the light blocks the view to the inside that the bamboo blinds don't.

The island housed the microwave and so  when we removed the island (which we sold for a great price on kijiji), the microwave ended up on this counter which you see from the front door which looked terrible. Although convenient, I truly hated looking at it each and every day.

Now we have our counter space back that we land our keys and cell phones on at the end of the day and also a place for something pretty to look at like one of my Mom's paintings.

I know it's a little large for the space and it will eventually get moved to a more appropriate area but for now I love seeing it every day. 

  

My honey came up with the superb idea to move the microwave to the basement stair landing built-ins in the opening that was originally designated for our bright blue ugly recycle bin.  You may know this but microwaving food destroys it's nutrients so we don't use it for any of our main cooking, just for the very occasional light reheating and my favourite, warming the plates. 

He added a shelf above and there ended up being just enough room for our convection toaster oven that was previously relegated to the basement since there was no where to put it in the kitchen. I don't mind taking one more step down now to reach the recycle bin that is now on the floor just to the left of the microwave and like not having to see the ugly blue bin.

 All we need to now is install a new plug in the right place and add a sheet of aluminum to the roof above the convection oven and the back wall behind it for protection from the heat and we will have a secondary cooking center just off the kitchen.

Oh and the large doors on either side are getting replaced under warranty as they seemed to have warped and look terrible.

Isn't it amazing how little things can make you happy!