We’re kind of stumbling into a kitchen renovation.

A week or so ago we put up new blown glass, dark brown very contemporary pendant lights over the “breakfast bar.” They looked great but they made everything else look bad.

Then we found a great buffet,

There’s a blank wall in our kitchen, near the dining area. We’d pressed a tacky free-standing bookcase/bar-type unit into service when we moved in, and located it on the blank wall for extra storage. It was ugly, but served us well. We realized was time to do something about the bookcase, so we purchased the buffet. Yes, we know built in cabinets could be built-in to match our kitchen, but this is something we can arrange elsewhere or even take with us if we buy a different condo. With wine storage and ample drawers and cabinets, it fits our lifestyle.

The new unit is dark, chocolate colored wood with brushed stainless knobs. It looks great with the hanging pendant lights, but it sure doesn’t match the existing honey oak kitchen cabinets.

Today our new stainless French-door refrigerator was delivered. The refrigerator, buffet and the lights blend together quite nicely. But the existing wallpaper is too busy. (We’ve always said the paper should be removed.) But it’s the cabinets that now stand out as “totally dated.”

This afternoon we had a guy come to give us a bid for changing the cabinets. For obvious reason, he wants us to go with replacement cabinets. He’d like us to get rid of the buffet, which he said doesn’t do a thing for the area. He may be right, but it’s serviceable and we’re satisfied. We didn’t spend so much that we can’t ever part with it, but for now, we want to just concentrate on the rest of the kitchen.

For the lowest price we can paint the existing kitchen cabinets, or for more we can put new doors and skins on them, or we can replace them completely. We’re getting bids on all options.

We’ll see what this cabinet maker can do and tomorrow afternoon, we’ll have another bidder look at the job.

We don’t want to put too much into this project. We’ll see…..