A Real Kitchen after 2.5 Years (6/28/17)

In the past few weeks I have been trying to make this apartment feel a little less like camping and a little more like a normal home.  If there is such a thing as NORMAL based on this life that we lead. (Which we love, by the way!)  We have been back in the Philippines long enough to get back in the groove of ministry duties and we are waiting on some bigger projects on the horizon.  Because I don't do "idle", "little to do", or "down time" well I started reviewing some personal projects that I have wanted to accomplish for quite some time. (Some from as far back as June of 2014.)

These pictures show what the kitchen looked like for the first 2.5 years we have been in the Philippines.

As you can see there is no place to cook..  We have been cooking on a 2 burner gas cook top and using a toaster over all of this time.  That has gotten really old because we have to move everything around just to cook.  I don't like to cook any way, so that didn't help things.

In September (2016), we acquired one of the stoves that Threads of Hope purchased along with all the belongings in two apartments that belonged to some Americans in Olongapo who were running a birthing center who moved back to the States.

Once we acquired the stove we had to acquire trays to bake on.  So of course we need a place to put them.  So we decided to add a couple of pieces to our existing cabinets and rearrange many things to make things more functional.

Because we have this amazing group of people to help us to build things, we designed the cabinets, acquired the materials and worked along side them for the cutting and basic assemble of each piece. Then they finish up with patching, priming and painting. They are really good at what they do.

In November (2016), when I started this blog post, we had just added the stove, the section of shelving to the left of the stove on the floor that holds our water bottles and the section above the stove for contains, cookbooks, and our toaster oven (which we still use regularly).  The exhaust fan was over to the left and we put a shelf there instead and designed the exhaust fan to actually sit over the stove.  Now, I believed the kitchen was complete.  Or so I thought.  

Anyone who remodels know that there is a domino effect that occurs when you start changing things. One change leads to the next good idea, which leads to the next change.

After we got the stove and the organizing cabinets made and got them painted, it was time to take the next step.  We designed a cabinet/larder for dry and canned goods that we had been stuffing on another shelf.  It is a pretty sophisticated unit.  I has slanted shelves so the cans roll to the front.  It turned out really well.

Now if we could just have doors.  I think I ask for too much.  A girl can dream, can't she?