Our last big renovation at Lloyd's Landing was the kitchen, and it presented particular challenges: it had some good bones, but it was a sad hodge podge of “good enough” improvements.

When the cabin was first built in the late 1940s, there was a pump in the back yard and no running water inside. The older cousins remember pumping water for cooking in the sparse kitchen. All the cousins remember the Wee Wee House, the aptly named two-seater outhouse that was a scary walk in the dark and a smelly encounter by day.

By the late 1960s, the family had installed a sand point well that provided running cold water straight into the kitchen. Now that was living large! The sink was placed near the northwest corner, but not exactly in the corner where the windows were. So you could kind of see out the windows while doing dishes, but all you could really see were the neighbors’ kids and not your own.

The kitchen also included a small set of upper cabinets in the predictable knotty pine, and a custom-made island with open shelving beneath. Open shelving isn’t a bad idea by itself, but these shelves were deep and poorly lit, so there was always a little trepidation involved in reaching too far into them.

A red linoleum countertop that matched the red bar stools

By the time we took ownership, the island itself was sturdy, but the countertop was in rough shape. The original countertop was a deep red, matching the chrome and red bar stools that surrounded the island The replacement countertop, which was stained, chipped, and nondescript, only covered the island. There was a big gap on the west wall between the island and the sink, and it was filled in with a rickety mismatched Formica countertop that was affixed to two old table legs. Apparently four table legs would've been an extravagance; the back of the thing was held up by a couple of nails in the wall. Smart.

The floor was a fabulous linoleum tile, a mottled greenish teal, straight from the 1950s. But by the time we took ownership, the tile was broken and chipped on almost every edge and corner.

In short, the kitchen was a mess. It had a mid-mod flair that spoke of more better days but had sadly faded with time. In 2015, we were finally ready to tackle the kitchen!

Uncovering that Dream Kitchen