House Hunting: The finale part 2

Today we're just going to do the kitchens and dining rooms. The kitchen in House #1 doesn't really need any work. It's an eat in kitchen with a formal dining room and it has hardwood floors. The first picture is the dining room. The doors lead out into the backyard. We could even use this room as a little toy/sitting room since we probably won't be purchasing a dining room table anytime soon. We could have a little tv and some recliners and BabyC's toys, it would make cooking dinner a little less lonely!  I think we would probably put an island in instead of a regular table in the kitchen because I need more storage and cooking space. The stainless steel appliances are pretty new and only the dishwasher would need an eventual upgrade. I'd finally be able to retire my Brita pitcher because I'd be able to get water straight from the fridge and we could finally have ice! There were two things I didn't like about this kitchen: the counters are tiled and the oven is a flat top electric. I prefer gas in kitchens and I can't stand flat top stoves. My mom already told MrC that I would need adult supervision if we kept that stove because I tend to try and use flat top stoves like griddles, lol. I like the color of the kitchen too, so that's one less thing to have to worry about.

 

House #2 is not nearly as updated as #1. The floors are tiled in the kitchen and there's laminate flooring in the dining room. I'm not a fan of the peach color on the dining room walls so that would need to go. This stove is gas but it's old like the fridge and dishwasher, but they all work. We liked the hanging pot thingy but we don't have any pots that look good enough to hang up there, so it'd certainly be empty for awhile. This kitchen has a lot of cabinet space and the pantry has pull out shelves which was a nice feature. The sink and window were my mom's favorite part of the kitchen. This kitchen is big and leads right into the family room, so it's not as cut off as the other one. I feel like the dining room area would kind of be wasted space though. It's right off the front door so we'd want to have something in there, but not necessarily a big dining room table yet since it'll be quite a few years before we have enough kids to fill it up. The kitchen has sliding glass doors that lead right out into the backyard just like the other house. The white door you see leads to the laundry room and that's also the way you'd come in from the garage and it has a door that leads to the backyard. I liked that little space because not only would the dog be able to sleep there, we could use it as a little mud room if BabyC got dirty playing outside and the mess wouldn't be tracked through the kitchen. The lighting fixtures look better in house #1 (except the dining room chandelier, that has to go) , but house #2 has a fan in the kitchen for clearing up any smoky mishaps! Almost all the lights in this house have dimmers, including the kitchen, which made me happy because it reminded me of my bedroom growing up. {SN: My parent's had to install a dimmer in my room growing up because I used to see turkeys dancing at the foot of my bed. Even in our apartment now we've had to get a nightlight for my late night bathroom trips because I keep "seeing" little gnomes running in the bathroom to get me. I swear you'd think I had a traumatic childhood with all the crazy things my brain thinks up}

 

The only thing we'd immediately choose to do in house #1's kitchen is change the chandelier and get an island. We'd eventually change the countertops too. In house #2 we'd change the knobs on the cabinets (my sister went out of her way to point out they needed to go), change the light fixtures, paint, and put shelves in the under stair storage area so I could store all my bulk stuff there. Eventually though we'd have to replace all the appliances and we'd probably upgrade the counters at some point.