Loft Photos: Kitchen

One month ago we moved our family of four into the (rental) loft.  It’s a circa 1920s Public School House – I find truly funny that our homeschooling family actually live in a school.

Anyway, we have sufficiently unpacked the kitchen to have proper “before” pictures.  However, we have not completely unpacked…so I’m “slow leaking” pictures of the loft, by room, as I tackle final projects to help make the loft “ours” so to speak.

There will be no major renovations, no cans of paint.  The walls will stay the color they are, the built-in cabinetry will stay just exactly as we received them (though I’d tear them out with my bare hands right now if I had the money to replace them).  Everything remotely space transforming must be on my dime and mobile enough to take with me when we do decide to move.

Welcome to my kitchen tour:

The first photo you’ll see two (and a half) walls where my first big Loft Projects will begin.  I want to create a message center on the left and a photo/art gallery in the niche and on the stairway wall.

Loft - Kitchen Entryway

Twelve foot ceilings and pale white walls gave the kitchen a deceivingly humongous appearance.  While it still is large, we have been surprised at how much it shrank once we started filling our loft up with stuff.   The kitchen is lacking in drawers, cupboards and completely void of any pantry.  To make due, we repurposed an old dresser to mark our entryway while making it work double duty storing placemats, BBQ equipment, platters and tupperware.  That little niche serves as our only downstairs eating area.  The table and chairs are recent IKEA purchases.  Just scooting past, you’ll see items still in need of unpacking…and perhaps you can tell there’s a little space behind the stairway wall.  It’s a long n.a.r.r.o.w. room we’ve slid shelves into for storing pantry items.

Loft - View from front door

The two kitchen cupboards you see are just high enough to be of no sufficient use…not even, really, for storage.  The pot racks were from my husband (as were all the new pots).  The landlord, just before we moved in, replaced the stove with a sleek glass top model, so all my rough and ready pots were regulated to either storage or Goodwill.  We used two wall mounted model pot racks found in Bed, Bath & Beyond.  One has a shelf, which helps (again, few cupboards to speak of) and another is a really sleek, flat model I use strictly for storing the pot lids.  It’s soooo much nicer than if we hung the lids on the same rack as our pots.

Do you see all the sunshine filling the room?

Loft - Kitchen Cook Area (view from breakfast nook)

Loft - Kitchen Door

Loft - Bird's Eye View of the Kitchen's Cooking Side

Loft - Bird's Eye View of Breakfast Nook

Another gift from my DH – an IKEA linen cupboard for dishes.  We’ve tried a number of solutions in this space…and I finally won him over to having something glassed in.  Literally, I was washing dishes every day that we hadn’t even used yet, because dust and stairway traffic “dirt” was constantly coming into the open shelves.

Loft - Kitchen Dish Cabinet Closeup

Loft - Dishes Closeup...and my color inspiration

This spice rack is actually a hotel key and mail slot shelf from, supposedly according to the story handed down, from the very first hotel in Jacksonville Beach, FL.  I received it on the birthday before my maternal grandmother passed on.  She had knick-knacks stored in it….It took me a solid year to decide what to do with it myself before I removed its gummy room numbers.  Most of my spice jars are from World Market with homemade labels using scrapbook labels and rub on letters.

Loft - Kitchen Spicerack Closeup

Enter some of the objects I want to incorporate into what will be the Photo/Art Gallery.   My own paternal grandparents made a little wooden village for my daughter, E, when she was just a small girl.  Grandpa cut and sanded scrap wood, and Grandma painted them carefully, labeling them with family names – including creating individual houses for E and each of her siblings.   They made churches, and created stores based on family interests or history, little stores like donut shops and pizza parlors.  Then Grandma got really fancy and cut and pasted Target and other store logos.

Block Houses

Some are thinner than others, and immediately lent themselves to my very inexpensive shadow boxes lined with bright blue scrap paper.

Loft - Gallery Idea, Block Houses in Shadow Box

I have to shop for deeper shadow boxes for the rest of the village.  My daughter, E, is thrilled to have these keepsakes on display.  She’s equally thrilled about gaining space in her room and the ability to use the chest (shown in the original picture with the houses) to store other items.  (The chest was made for me, when I was a little girl, by my great-grandfather…her great-great-grandfather, to keep safe my toy tea set.)