It had old cabinets, track lighting, a popcorn ceiling, and -- wait for it -- carpet on the floor. Who puts carpet in a kitchen??? We began slowly tearing things out and fixing them up. We tore out a wall, added new lighting and replaced all the windows. Below is a picture of Chris and my father in law working at the house. (Notice once we pulled the nasty carpet up we found brick-patterned linoleum? Ew.)
Once we opened up a can of worms, we realized we needed to replace the kitchen cabinetry and rearrange some things in the kitchen to do it right. So we tore out our newly-replaced (expensive) window and framed it in for a smaller one to allow for cabinetry against that wall.
Here's a picture of how the kitchen ended up looking. Now, since we took out the big window and replaced it with a smaller one, we had a big window-sized piece of bare plywood on the outside of our house that wasn't brick like the rest of it. Hence, the need for a brickmason.
And finally, a year later, the back of our kitchen window looks just like the rest of the house! (Sorry, no picture of the outside before, darn it!) Once the mortar dries you won't even be able to tell that anything was done right here. He did such a great job!
