Last week, I stumbled across a picture of our kitchen that I took a week before we moved into the house.

Sorry for the lousy picture – clearly I wasn’t thinking about possible blog posts four years down the road when I snapped this shot.

It’s been a long time since we looked at this photo. White walls, cheap white laminate cabinets on one side and dingy wooden cabinets on the other side. A floor that was falling apart. I actually think this picture is identical to the one that was in the real estate listing – the listing that made me initially turn down a viewing. I mean, really – it’s not much to look at, is it?

But of course, we did end up buying the house and we knew that eventually the room would need to be redone – we just figured it would be another five or ten years before we would get around to it. In the meantime, we decided to just have fun with the space. We painted the walls a cheerful green and covered one wall in chalkboard paint. We even tried to brighten the faux-brick back splash by painting it white, but after spending tedious hours dabbing paint into all the crevices (thanks mom!), we gave up and never attempted the second wall. Which is probably a good thing – I had no idea how hard it is to keep white brick clean.

Overall, I didn’t love my kitchen but I didn’t hate it either. But now? Now it’s the most beautiful space in our house – you’d never believe it was the same room!