The kitchen is one of the rooms in our house that we spend the most time in. Claire and I live in Humboldt County, California, which is blessed with incredible local food resources. College of the Redwoods, where I teach, has its own organic farm and CSA.  Our local food co-op is well-stocked with local cheeses like Humboldt Fog, local organic meats and local seafood. The kitchen was the first room that we started tearing into when we started renovating our house, and unfortunately, it was one of the last to be finished. We wanted the kitchen to be a place where we actually wanted to hang out and spend our time.

The kitchen as we originally found it was fairly well laid out, but filled with horrible cheap '80s cabinets, dingy floral wallpaper and cheap appliances. We installed a dishwasher, put up drywall over the wallpaper and painted the room a bright yellow and installed some funky lighting fixtures. It was a great start, but the stove---an inexpensive Sears model with an old pegboard over it--- continued to taunt us.

The horror. After removing the pegboard. What could we do to make the stove area fun and functional? A new stove would be a good start. We started combing Craigslist for vintage stoves, and finally found a great (but really dirty and greasy) one that we could afford. Claire put a huge amount of elbow grease (and gallons of vinegar) into cleaning it. You can read about her valiant efforts HERE.

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