Yes, we live like this. And we have for years. If you’re a germaphobe, please look away now.

Our long term plan is to completely redo the kitchen. We’ll probably end up adding an extension as the layout here is difficult to get around. There are windows and doors in every wall. It would be a bit cramped for an island. We also don’t love the idea of having a full bathroom right off the kitchen, but we want the home to have 2 baths.

As you can see, the refrigerator is not really part of the kitchen. The cabinets are great for tall people, but there’s not much space low to the ground, which at 4’11” is where I am. We love the antique cabinets and the plan is to strip them and keep them. We have some matching doors in the garage. So, we’re set on the cabinet front!

The wallpaper and tile are not our taste. As far as the wainscoting, of course we’re keeping it. We’ll need to decide whether we want to strip it or not. The previous owner told us she tried to and it looked blotchy, so she painted it. Doors will be stripped. We’ll be getting retro appliances and probably go with copper countertops or something period. That dishwasher is new, so we’ll just put a panel on it to cover up the fact that it’s modern. God forbid we should have anything look new!

Ok, short term plan. By June:

That lovely black pipe is our main sewer line. The original cast iron stack burst last year and we’ve yet to wall it in. Come to think of it, it was never covered up in the first place. Just painted. Hmm. Funny story: All the local plumbers wanted to do PVC because it’s code in Beacon. They didn’t want to replace it with cast or wanted to charge a fortune for it. We had to get our guy from Brooklyn (he actually lives in Warwick now) to do it. Even funnier: We also had to replace the original stack in Brooklyn because it was leaking. Are we lucky or what?

The ceiling looks like this due to another leak, which happened at least 2 years ago. This time it was the bathtub pipes above that burst. Hubby was away the week it happened, so I had to call a plumber. Anyway, we want to install a tin ceiling, but because we haven’t figured out the long term plan for the kitchen, we’re putting it off. Maybe another quick fix for now.

We’ll replace the light fixture, but I’d like to funkify it and sell it.

So, what do you think? By June? Should we do the bare minimum or rip into it? Guess the place to start is to do some CAD drawings and figure out if we’ll need to extend or not. Or just put it off until May.