Kosher Kitchen Remodeled

My 3rd son when he was little. Not so unusual
for this crazy little boy. Making mischief in my
tiny little kitchen.  

As many of you will recall my entire house was destroyed last October, three weeks before Hurricane Sandy hit. A water leak in the second floor bathroom completely ruined my home. Most of my house has been gutted and we have been living in a rental house for the last 6 months. We are FINALLY ready to rebuild!!

My kitchen is so tiny and when we first bought the house, the Realtor couldn't  understand why we picked the house. My husband and I saw the potential. The backyard is huge and although it's a tiny little home, it's cozy and ours. We've even  nicknamed it the "cottage."

Of course I've always dreamed of a new kitchen, but moneys tight and life gets in the way.

So this is what I had before. Just one small wall to work on. An oven, microwave, one cabinet that held both sets of our dishes and 2 pull out drawers one for each set of silverware.

For all of you wondering why I need 2 sets of everything, let me explain. I keep strictly kosher. That means I separate milk and meat. Not only do I not eat them together, but all my dishes and silverware have to be separate  We have separate pots, pans, dishes, cups, and silverware. I can't eat dairy on my meat plates and vise versa. This kitchen would be fine if I didn't keep kosher, but because it's so small it's quite a challenge!

I had a small free standing shelf in-between the
the door and window on the left hand side of the kitchen. 

My kids are always mixing things up, especially since the area is so small. One of the things we wanted in our new kitchen was for everything to be completely separate. 

As I'm sure you can imagine, we are working on a VERY tight budget. We wanted to make the most of our tiny space and maximize whatever we had. I recruited a friend of mine Sara Schmutter who is a kitchen and bath designer. I had been hearing how good she was from a couple of my friends around town, so it was an obvious choice to ask her to come up with some ideas for me. I told her what I liked and wanted.

I think of myself as a creative person, but I would NEVER have come up with this plan on my own. She is amazing! It's a completely fresh and new redesigned use of functional space - and I even have a dishwasher!

My favorite part it the bar on the right.
It will be perfect for breakfast in the morning. 

The Dairy side of the kitchen

The meat side of the kitchen.

One thing my husband does not like is the separation. He wants a continuous "L" Shaped counter, but I like it.  It will not only keep everything in it's place, but I think we get a lot more usable space. I hate corner cabinets. If you look at the photo below you will see that instead of a corner cabinet on the dairy side, we opted for a cabinet on the opposite side underneath the bar. I thought this would be PERFECT for the kids games. 

See the cabinet under the bar?

Can't wait to start picking colors and watching these plans come into fruition. The way I see it, I may have lost a house, but God gave me a great opportunity to blog about remodeling on a budget!

If you are looking to remodel your home and would like to get in contact with Sara please message me at shabbey2@gmail.com I would be more than happy to pass on her info.

Till next time!
Abbey

UPDATE!!

One of the things that I love about what I do is that I can be inspired by others around me. A few of you guys gave me some great suggestions. The idea of a corner sink I loved so I asked Sara to whip me up a new design using that corner sink. And VOILA! Within a couple of minutes we had this new design for the meat side!! I love how fast she works and that she is so flexible within any given design! 

Because of the size of the window we can't get a corner
wall cabinet  :( 

What do you think?

Please let me know by commenting below!! 
I love hearing everyone's ideas!! 

To get a hold of Sara please contact her at parkavekitchens@gmail.com