During the walk through process while purchasing this home I stepped into the kitchen and immediately said “that wall must go!”:

I knew another  kitchen renovation for this old home was on tap.  For some reason the prior owner, who did the last renovation to this home (built 1908) left this partial wall between the “eating” part of the kitchen and the “cooking” part of the kitchen.

wall between cooking and eating area of kitchen

From the cooking area, there was a handy chalkboard but you had to kind of move back and forth to talk to people in the seating area.  This was annoying at best.

prior to kitchen improvement - old stove and chalkboard

The refrigerator died before the kitchen improvement was slated to begin so there was no choice but to do that upgrade early.  This caused a need for some pre-planning to be sure we got the right fridge.  Included in this planning was the decision on other appliances for the purpose of matching, the finish, and the size of the fridge.  A counter-depth bottom freezer model was chosen from teh Kenmore Elite line.  Through the door filtered water and ice was mandatory.  Having cold filtered water with filtered ice is simply a great feature and we no longer buy bottled water.

Here are some additional pictures walking around the space to give the reader an idea of what it looked like prior to the renovation.

Before kitchen improvement: stove & sink area

Prior to kitchen improvement - old stove

It’s difficult to tell from the photos, but the seating area has 10 foot ceiling, like the rest of the first floor.  For some reason the ceiling in the cooking area was dropped down – a 2 x4 framed ceiling was suspended with 6″ can lights installed at a height of 8 1/2 feet.

old kitchen prior to improvement

Notice the white door through the wall by the stove – that goes into an awkward closet/hall then a full bathroom (or 3/4 bath if you’re a realtor!).  There are no bedrooms on the first floor and no need for a shower off the kitchen.  There is, however, a big need for a coat/broom closet.  It may seem strange to eliminate or reduce the number of baths during a renovation, but the need for additional closet space in this location is much greater than the need for a shower so the bath will be reduced to a half bath.  There are three other full baths in the home, totaling four bathrooms on three floors, so there is not much loss there.

Prior to kitchen improvement - micro shelf and dishwasher

Refridgerator wall to the right of microwave

Here is the view going into the akward closet/hall and full bath:

Before kitchen improvement door to coat closet and bathroom

The shower insert in the bath

So the first step for this kitchen improvement project is to tear down the wall!