Dear Old Kitchen....I Miss You

November 24, 2015 Courtney Foster Shearer

Warning: This post is full of "first world problems" and content that may or may not bring about feelings of annoyance or rage at me.

Y'all know I'm super excited about our new house and feel very, very lucky to be here. However, every now and then I do find myself missing our old kitchen.

Photo by Galina Coada.

It's hilarious really, because I literally barely know how to boil water, but there are a handful of things I find myself missing about this space on a regular basis. And I'm not talking about the pretty, I'm talking about real life functional things, like....

A double trash pullout IN the kitchen.

I realize it may seem a little weird to lead with a trash can (or two) but seriously I never realized what a luxury this was until I didn't have it anymore. I had two 50 quart trash cans that pulled out from behind a cabinet, completely within reach at all times. Now I have one large trash can around the corner in the walk-in pantry. It is literally ridiculous how annoying and inconvenient it is to have to leave the kitchen to throw trash away. It is equally as annoying and inconvenient to have to take out the trash what feels like constantly. With two trash cans (one regular and one recycling) it took awhile for the bins to fill up. Over here at the new house the trash always seems to be full.

A touch Faucet

Photo from my Instagram page.

I've talked before about my love for my touch faucet, but I don't think I realized how used to it I became. I can not tell you guys how many times I have smacked my faucet over here at the new house to get it to come on. Of course it doesn't, I stare at it dumb-founded and then I remember.

Soft-Close hinges and guides on my cabinet doors and drawers:

I literally feel like such a diva writing this, but once you experience cabinet doors and drawers that do not slam no matter how hard you shut them it is (apparently) really hard to go back. I, like so many people lived with "normal" cabinets my whole life, but after working at Bell Kitchen & Bath Studios (custom cabinet makers) and having those custom cabinets in my own house for almost 3 years I somehow lost the ability to shut doors and drawer gently.

Oh woe is me, I know, but to be honest it is really helpful knowing what bells and whistles I actually care about and which ones are nice to have in theory, but mean very little to our day-to-day life. As I said in my "Meet Our New House Post" this house has really good bones and while we want to put our own personal stamp all over it, there is nothing that just has to be done. We definitely want to redo the kitchen. What? I can't help myself, it's what I dooooooo. But, with the baby coming in a matter of WEEKS (ahhh) and all of the other craziness surrounding us with the move, work, etc.. we have no immediate plans to begin any renovation of that magnitude. However, we certainly talk about it, scheme about it, draw it and think about it often and in a way it's nice to have this time to really consider what we want to do. If you remember, with our last kitchen remodel we had to dream it up and execute it all before we moved in. This worked perfectly fine then and we were both happy with the finished product, but it's nice to have some time to marinate on all of the decisions and really consider what worked for us the first time around and what didn't, so we can make this next kitchen even better than our last.

Unless otherwise noted all photos are my own.