Rockwood Kitchen-Before and After

The first two photographs here are from the kitchen when we first purchased the Rockwood house. Notice the missing plumbing, dishwasher and frig. Odd place in ceiling that also runs down the wall. The base cabinet ends about a ft sooner than the upper cabinet. Although you can't see it here, there was no hot water heater, not to mention there was no water supply to the house. We think it must have been on well, but to this day we still have not found the well.

The floor was not all there, some sub flooring, and some 'nothing'. The stove was a 'drop in' style. The counter tops and back splash were made together. Notice the raised up spot in the corner. And the chrome color on the counter top was a built in blender. The cabinets were actually in alot worse shape than you can see here. I thought we would have to gut the whole kitchen, but Jimmy had a vision. He sanded the cabinets, and cleaned (and cleaned, and cleaned) the hardware. Took out the back splash and the counter tops. Gone was the built in blender too. When he had the new counter tops made they made the raised corner again, it was because the cabinets are deeper than cabinet corners are now. I got the photos out of order, but this is one of the 'after' photos. Notice we did away with the drop in stove/oven. Jimmy added a small base cabinet to even it up with the upper cabinet. He built the wood across the ceiling, down the wall and the base shelves at the end of the cabinets you see in this photo.

A close up of the ceiling with the damage from where the previous owners had removed whatever had been there. The rest of the ceiling was textured, so we had to do something there or redo the whole ceiling. The holes have wiring for lights....

So we picked out a light and Jimmy went to work designing this.

He had to piece the wood addition all around the Nutone Intercom System that does still operate all through the house. Notice the brick back splash. It is all the way around the cabinets, and it does really look good. John saw it yesterday and said we need to do this at home he liked it so well. Yep, my butterflies are also in Rockwood.

Another view of the shelf unit Jimmy made.

For those of you that have always been followers you will know the rest of this story, but I have some new blogging buddies so I will retell this for them. My husband's job moved 92 miles from our home. He had 5 years until retirement, so we had to do something. We found this Fannie Mae house, and I refer to it as "going to Rockwood". We bought it in November 2008, and could not even sleep in the house until January. Didn't have a functioning kitchen until June of this year. I have now cooked dinner there 4 times. The kitchen is coming together for us and it makes the house seem more like a home. As much as was wrong with the house, it actually is a very nicely built home and is very structurally sound.

To add to the mileage, I work evening shift and Jimmy works day shift. My job is 30 miles from home and 55 miles from the house in Rockwood. Since he is asleep when I get there I only go once or twice during the week. We have only spent 2 weekends there, one being this last weekend. Jimmy is working long hours right now, as they are trying to bring the new 'brick' plant on line, so I have actually been going a little more than usual.

Since we had to find a home away from home I am glad we found this one. Also glad Jimmy got most of the time consuming work completed before he started working the long hours on the job. About all he is doing now is working and sleeping.