That first winter was very hard on us.  We stapled towels to the doorway of the living room and put a single electric heater on the floor and that is were we stayed for almost three months.  The bathroom was down the hall and no one wanted to leave the living room's balmy 50 degrees to go to the bathroom, which was in the 30's.  We all slept in this same room together in order to keep warm.  

We set up a makeshift kitchen in one of the back bedrooms with a crockpot, a hot plate, and a folding table.  Luckily we had a small refrigerator that we added to the camper so we had a way to keep food refrigerated, even though that room was cold enough to keep things from spoiling.  

We decided that getting a functioning kitchen up and running was first on the list of priorities so the kitchen remodel was put at the top of the list.  We had been pinning a lot of pictures on Pinterest, so we knew which direction we wanted to go in.  The house was built in 1912 so I didn't want to put in a modern kitchen. I wanted all the modern conveniences, but I wanted to keep the house as true to its roots as possible, that and I didn't want to spend an arm and a leg to do it.  

We found open shelving and wide plank floors on Pinterest and fell in love with the look, now to do it on a budget.  We took down the drywall on the ceiling and found ship lap which we absolutely loved.  We also had ship lap on the walls, but needed to leave the drywall up on the interior walls because there was no insulation. Without the drywall we could easily see through to the outside and we didn't want add to the chill in the air.

The first thing we needed to do was figure out the flooring situation.  All that was on the floor was plywood subfloor that had been covered with linoleum squares, making it sticky to walk on.  We wanted wide plank flooring but couldn't afford to buy them, so we found a way to mimic them on Pinterest.  We took standard plywood and had the home improvement store rip it into 8 inch strips.  We then nailed them down like flooring, sanded, stained, and sealed them for instant wood flooring.  It has held up really well over the last two years and we hope to put it through the rest of the house in the future.

Next we bought standard cabinets for the lower part and did open shelving for the uppers.  Open shelves force one to keep the kitchen organized, but we love the look.  Twice a year, we have to take everything off the shelves and clean them, a long and arduous task.  We also found a farmhouse sink at IKEA and decided to go with it.  Finally, we also decided to change the stove from electric to propane and we are so happy we did. 

The countertops were a bit tricky.  We knew we wanted butcher block but we couldn't really afford to do it right away, so we found another pin on Pinterest and decided to put 2x6 boards together to give us the look of butcher block without the expense.  It will be replaced sometime in the future, but for now it works.

Unfortunately we didn't have a pantry, so we bought leaning shelves and screwed them to the wall and they are used for food storage.  It's not ideal but at least we can't buy food we don't need, since there just isn't any room to store extra food.  Maybe in the future I can get a root cellar, but that would require a tractor or a back hoe which I know the hubby is all for buying.

This is the kitchen after the full renovation.  It is much smaller that the kitchen we had at our old house, but we are absolutely in love with it.  In the future we plan on replacing the countertops with butcher block, but the feeling is there with the wood planks.  That farmhouse feel is starting to come back to this little red farmhouse and we love it more every passing day.