Little Upgrades

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but my kitchen has no counter space and next to no cabinet space. You might remember this picture from the last house tour:

(please pardon the orange walls - I'm planning to paint the kitchen and the living room and dining room at the same time, which will be quite the undertaking!)

Yep. What you see is what you get. The usable counter space is that little sliver between the sink and the stove. Seriously.

Here is a picture of the other side of the kitchen, which I didn't show last time (it has a tendency to be cluttered):

Very messy. The baker's rack is my attempt to free up some cabinet space. The rest is a mish-mash of random stuff that I just had available when I moved in. I've been toying with the idea of adding some cabinets and counters on this side of the room, but that would involve either trying to find cabinets that matched the original ones, or refacing the old ones to match the new ones.

That wasn't going to happen in any reasonable time frame.

BUT!

I went to this consignment shop a few weeks ago, and happened to find an amazing alternative.

Isn't it so pretty?

It's made from pieces of other furniture, and has a metal frame with casters. The back and sides are finished, so it will look good in the middle of a room too. Such a great find!!

I also updated the space by the front door. Here is the before:

And here is the piece I got at the same time as the island:

Yay! Storage galore! Now I can put the mail in the top of the secretary instead of on the coffee table. So much better! It'll look even better after I paint or refinish it (which will happen eventually...)