tales of a very ugly kitchen: it's bad

The kitchen in our new old house was so ugly–old appliances, stained coutertops, dingy laminate flooring, faded cabinets all illuminated by a ginormous flourescent ceiling fixture, but we were still smitten, and  our home inspector assured us that everything was in working condition.  “Whew, that’ll save us some cash,” we thought, and give us time to save some dough for what I like to call a big honkin’ kitchen renovation.  So we figured we’d live with the uninspiring culinary digs for a few years before tearing down walls, replacing appliances and updating cabinets and countertops.  Right.

{The vintage Tappan Fabulous 400 and fridge.}

On the big move-in day, the fridge started to emit a mysterious chemical smell and was fit for storing only our celebratory six-pack and the jar of pickles we managed to gingerly trek across town. Only a few days later, we discovered that the one shining star in the kitchen, the amazingly cool, vintage Tappan Fabulous 400 oven/cooktop, made it tricky even to boil water for mac ‘n cheese.  To make matters worse, the floor and sink never seemed to get clean, scrub as we might.  Talk about uninspired.  Would we ever be able to serve anything beyond Triscuits and Cheez-whiz?

So, we hatched a new five year plan called the “get this kitchen in stylish working order on the cheap–pronto!” so that we can save up for the “big honking kitchen renovation” someday down the road.  Stay tuned to see how it all panned out…