Breaking down walls

When we moved into the house, the one room that I was NOT worried about was the kitchen.  It was the "un-squeakiest wheel" in the whole place.... well besides the basement, but the basement is such a nightmare, I kind of shut the door and forget it exists.

A previous owner had completely updated the kitchen (thanks), which put it squarely at the bottom of my to-do list (right next to the 3rd bedroom- aka my sewing room).

The one thing that I did want to do, was to knock down the wall that separates the kitchen from the dining room. 

It really blocks off the flow...

When we were looking at this house, my one stipulation to buying it was that we would knock down this wall.  Chris was not sold on the idea, so I agreed to live with the wall for a few months until Chris came over to my side and agreed that it needed to come down (or until we could save enough money to hire a professional to do it).

Someday, it will be one large room when you walk into the house.  Nothing like an open floor plan.

It only took two months for Chris to come over to the right my side.  Once we decided to knock the wall down, we had to start saving for it.  Knocking down a wall is actually the inexpensive part.  Getting custom cabinets built, matching existing granite, putting in a header and creating custom molding to match our existing 1918 built-ins... now that is the expensive part.

If I had lots of money, I would get all of that done. Now.  The trouble is, that I don't have tons of disposable income just laying around, but I'm working on it.  Mac and cheese forever!

We are planning to create a bar that is counter top height with bar stools (which we conveniently already own) on the dining room side and cabinets on the kitchen side.  I am also toying with the idea of doing a built in wine cabinet on the dining room side, and maybe some built-in cook book shelves.

I have big ideas, but all these great ideas also cost more money. So sometime around my 40th birthday we will finally have this project done.

But in my dreams, this is how it will look when it's all done. Well, this is the best idea of my dream I could come up with in Photoshop. Imagine the grey wall behind the table as a bar with a counter top on it.

You get the idea right?

In the mean time, we are hoping to tackle a smaller project.  We are taking a cue from our condo's kitchen and planning on tiling our kitchen walls with green subway tile.

Is this normal?  Making your 2nd house look like your first?

I heart this kitchen

I'm not too concerned about being normal.  We just love that darn subway tile.

Chris is convinced that we can tile the walls ourselves, but I'm pretty sure we need to call in some back up for this project.

Dad.....