The 70's Attacked our Dining Room

I know the picture below is a kitchen, actually, you can't really tell what it is, huh? That my friends was the view from our front door when we bought our house.  Yes, that is a kitchen hiding behind the slate and Formica rust counter tops.  How we saw past this, I'm not sure.

This is the bar area. Pour me a drink, please.

This is the kitchen, and yes there is a counter top floating in the air.  

We were so young and naive when we bought the house.  We actually considered living with the kitchen until we could afford to fix it. I bleached the heck out of everything and even put a frame on the counter top.  Figuring, why not decorate while we fix the house.   I think this plan lasted about two days, until my sister-in-law suggested that we move the kitchen to the existing den. My then boyfriend/now husband was in Denver on business and I called him right away with our new plan. He, thankfully agreed. 

So we removed the slab of slate and concrete, ripped out the counter tops, copper vent hood, and cabinets.

We removed this half wall that was dividing the room in half.  This was quite the project. I'm talking metal beam across our ceiling.  We ripped out the 1970's octagonal tiles that was partially lifted in certain areas. Only to find years' worth of dog hair collecting under the tile.  The exposed concrete block is what we ended up tearing down to widen the entryway into our future kitchen.

We had our handyman blow out the kitchen door and widen the space for a window.

Here is the space before we moved in.  The floors are freshly polished.  I think what drew us to this crazy house, was the wood beam ceilings. They are just so beautiful. 

Here it is today.

We love the way this room feels. It's bright and open. It's not a large dining room, but with the space in the room we are able to add tables on to ours when we need to. We once sat about 30 people for dinner in this space.  I am thinking my $1.00 mirror will go on the empty wall by the table.  The room you see through the opening is my family room.