A Tour of Our Kitchen

Welcome to the Kitchen at Eastlake Victorian!

When the house was built in 1873, there was no kitchen. The owners probably had a small stove in the one-room house for both heating and some cooking. Maybe they cooked in an out building, but there is no evidence left for me to know for sure. The kitchen was probably added around the turn of the 20th century. There are no rooms above our kitchen, but there is a full basement below. Several years back when workmen were replacing all our roofing, they found a gaping hole in the kitchen roof, covered over with only tar paper and several layers of old asphalt roofing. They determined this was probably an old stove pipe location, improperly covered over in later years. There were 5 layers of old roofing that needed to be removed, including the original wood shingles from 1873!

Here's our kitchen as you enter it from the parlor. The back door leads to the basement and to an outside door to the yard. The round table was my grandma's. Nothing fancy here. No granite countertops, nothing special about the cupboards, and just a plain old double stainless steel sink. You can see our recycling bins in the far corner under the counter. We keep our garbage can outside the back door so the cats can't get into it!

There are some things I like about this kitchen, and a lot of things I don't like. What I dislike most of all is the ugly vinyl floor covering. It's old, yellowed, and worn out. It really must go! That being said, let me show you the rest of the kitchen. (Try to ignore the floor in the rest of the pictures!)

The refrigerator and stove came with the house. They are a light beige color, probably from the late 1980's. They still work great. I know a lot of people like new appliances, but as long as these items remain in good working order, I don't see the point of buying new. I'd rather spend that kind of money on something else in the house. Notice the weird shelf over the stove? It's lined with sheet metal, it's ugly, but I haven't taken it down because it's a great place to store the toaster, pot holders and plastic storage containers!

Here's a view of the light fixture I bought a couple years ago. I really love it! It replaced a very ugly neon light fixture. We put in a dimmer switch so that we can turn the light down when we're eating, but turn it up to clean or to prepare foods (we have no under-cabinet task lighting).

I like the fact that the window over the sink overlooks the garden. It's fun to wash dishes and watch the birds, butterflies and squirrels and see the pretty flowers in the summertime! I put some fake stained glass "stick-on" material in the upper window, then found a cute piece of wood gingerbread that fit the window nicely! It's a bit much, but I'll probably change that out someday. I don't like the casement windows that are in some of the rooms. I'd like to replace them with double hung instead.

Here's how it looks with the morning sun coming through.

Not much counter space, but I've never really needed any more. I usually prepare food on this side of the counter...

while this side is for some of the appliances such as the coffee maker and food processor.

I bought this creamware pitcher years ago and I use it to store my most used cooking utensils!

Notice the fake brick wall. When I bought the house I thought this was quaint, but I have since come to loath it. It's very hard to keep clean because of its textured surface, and the paint has chipped where I've had to clean it the most. I can't wait to tear it all off and get something easier to take care of.

A peek inside some of the cupboards...

Our mug rack.

Here's something I really love about the kitchen: Our antique kitchen cabinet! My mom gave us this cabinet about 10 years ago because it really wasn't working in her kitchen anymore. She has a pantry, but we don't, so this has given us so much more storage! We keep all our canned goods and most of our dried goods in here, as well as all my cookbooks!

The bottom part of the cabinet is great for storing all my odd-sized cooking pans and casserole dishes!

This is the cats' favorite window. In the summertime, we attach a cat perch, and they soak up the sun and smell the fresh air. An old rug beater hangs on the wall (yes, I do use it to beat rugs!).

I don't know the reasoning behind this high, long casement window. It's too high to look out of, so I hung a nice old piece of stained glass in it. It does bring a little more light into the room, but it's definitely not part of the original kitchen.

This little cabinet holds all our teas and pastas!

I love my antique kitchen clock! I love the sounds that old clocks make. I prefer faces with regular numerals rather than Roman numerals. This clock has beautiful Eastlake/Aesthetic cranes painted in gold on the glass door!

Back when bakers racks were all the rage, I bought this mini version. It's great for displaying some of my kitcheny knick-knacks.

Here is where the kitties eat!



I love the sound of our shopkeeper's bell that I attached to the back door!

And finally, my little old recipe box, filled to the brim with old recipes, some typed on an old typewriter and yellowed with age.



A couple years ago, I compiled all our favorite recipes and had them bound into a book. Now my very own cookbook is the one I use most often! Most of the recipes have been tweaked, and some are my own interpretations of foods we were used to eating before we became vegetarians. I go through cycles of experimenting with new recipes, and I'm at a point where I have enough new recipes to fill another volume!

I hope you enjoyed the tour of the Eastlake Victorian Kitchen. Please, if you have any suggestions, let me know! I value your input!

I have so many plans for this room. Here are my ideas so far:

1) Remove vinyl flooring, sand the old wooden floors, and varnish.

2) Replace the window over the sink.

3) Replace all the woodwork.

4) Replace the back door.

5) Add beadboard all the way up the 2 walls near table.

6) Add some narrow open shelving to replace the baker's rack.

7) Remove shelf over stove.

8) Replace the fake brick.

9) Add a fake tin ceiling (can't afford real tin!).

Remember my inspiration picture from way back in October 2009? Even though this kitchen is bigger, and I'll never have a stove like this, I think I can get a similar look. Wish me luck!