I'm yet to be convinced of any one in the entire world - make that galaxy - that doesn't like a before and after shot, even if it's to moan about what a shit job they did, right? There must be something hardwired into our DNA, and I have no idea why we have such a mechanism - please enlighten me in the comments.

I don't think I've shared a before and after our kitchen in it's (almost) entirety (still we have tiling to do, and a window to put in) and since today we also finally wrapped the old painted white beam, and got new lights, well - ta da!

But first, let's see the place before. It was used as an Air BNB, promoted as 'retro', meaning they couldn't be bothered making it up to date. Please note the walls.

To the right of that table there's the laundry wall - that was also taken out, but we'll talk about that another time.

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What walls? Also, note the window just through that smashed wall there, looking straight at the neighours.

Because we took out another little wall, and the larger one in the kitchen, the building felt that reinforcing the central beam that runs up the centre of the house was a good idea. He did a shit job really - can you see the wood on top of it? This juts out over the beam, so our planned 'wrap' of pine boards got trickier, until I suggested we step it out a little and 'pack' it til the new beam hid that wood.

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This morning, Jamie nailed in the underside of the wrap which we'd been waiting to do for ages, but were waiting for a ultra raw hard wax oil so we could oil it befeore we put it up. We went with pine as the span was 5 metres, and it was impossible to buy anything else without selling your right kidney. But if you've seen our pine floor - or when you see the pine floor, you'll get it. Besides, even pine was a beautiful forest once.

Okay...

####### Wait for it...

Are you ready?....

TA DA!!

And from another angle...

TA DA!

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A few things to note if you are new here...

We kept the old 70's light fixtures, because they're part of the history, AND lights are expensive, plus they're kinda funky
We got rid of the fireplace, two walls, and a window - and soon, over the sink there will be a new window looking out over trees
It's an IKEA kitchen - we installed it ourselves. A quarter of the price of a cabiner maker. We did the wooden bench top ourselves for a grand price of $500.
Note the pine floor is not orange varnish anymore - that was a hell few weeks of sanding for Jamie!

And if you aren't new, you might notice the new downlights - we went with brass to match the old fittings.

You might notice the black mat on the floor - it's actually an excercise mat from Kmart for $25. None of the bespoke 'kitchen rugs' from anywhere suited and were all silly expensive. I wanted one as as I don't want to ruin the pine floors. This works well - easy to sweep, or hose off outside if it gets too grubby. I quite like it.

We have a builder coming round this arvo to talk about a quote for a sliding door and a window - it's not something we can do ourselves as it's structural and we don't want to get into trouble with this one. Once we get the window, we can get the tiles done.

Oh while I'm here, @karinnxl, here's my pestle and mortar - it's actually from two sets but I liked one from the other the best.

Next job is the fireplace, going where the old chimney is. It won't be as big as the one AI mocked up for us but you get the idea. Setting back in the old chimney makes sense since our place is small. I'm really looking forward to this as I know the cold weather will creep up before we know it.