Before & After: Breathing New Life Into A Run-Down Kitchen
In October of 2014, my boyfriend, Sean and I purchased the tiny row house I had been living in for the past six years. When I moved to Philly to be closer to family I hadn’t expected our little residential spot off of (a then desolate and rather gritty) Frankford Avenue to all-of-a-sudden become Philadelphia’s hippest/hipsteriest hood. Not that I’m complaining, aside from the lack of parking nowadays, being able to walk out my door and around the corner to five or six bars, a butcher, the godsend of a coffee roaster – La Colombe, and the El, makes for a pretty convenient lifestyle.
The house way back when was a cheap 2-story row that my sister and I could share for pennies compared to the rent prices we were used to in New York. Cheap also meant run-down. Run-down meant uncared for and in desperate need of some love.
Three months after we purchased the house, my father got to work on helping us redo the kitchen, the bathroom, new HVAC and air conditioning. Considering the house’s size (800 square feet) my father, in the end, had looked over every nook and cranny of the house, undoing generations of shoddy repair work all the while creating something incredible.
The kitchen is the true showstopper. Dad and IKEA are the real reasons this kitchen turned out the way it did. Black Friday sales and learning how to tile and grout were the other factors. That backsplash was one of the few things my father trusted me to do on my own. Oh, and putting all the doors on the cabinets.
The whole house has been transformed in the past year and we’re so happy to call it ours. It’s been my home for over six years but now it’s a place Sean and I share. It’s something we made together, and I can’t stop smiling every time I walk in our (new) front door.
Thank you, Amanda!