I Found My (Realistic) Dream Kitchen

I've mentioned before that my kitchen needs some renovation love, but I don't want to totally lose my kitchen's 1940s vibe. I'm also leaning towards keeping my cabinets, which aren't anything fancy, but are original and in good shape. If I bought cabinets, I'd buy ones that looked old anyway, so why spend the money? I was having a hard finding inspiration of the look I want (and I'm very visual, I need visual inspiration) until I visited Casapinka's blog last week and spotted these two shots.

While I don't want a tile countertop, I love the subway tile backsplash and the cabinets. In fact I'd kill for those pantry cabinets. But it's so great to see a kitchen that kept its classic roots and still looks contemporary.

But then, while visiting Apartment Therapy today, I hit the motherlode. The inspiration of all inspiration.

This kitchen, which was featured on the 2007 Architectural Heritage Center's 11th Annual Kitchen Revival Tour (in Portland), is not only gorgeous, it also features a pretty darn close layout to my kitchen. I love everything about it, the cabinets, the subway tile, and the countertop. In fact when I showed the boyfriend, he thougt I'd photoshopped a picture of my kitchen with the changes I want (I only wish my Photoshop skills were on that level). If only I could find pictures of the rest of this kitchen. If anyone has pics of it, or knows where I can find them, please, please let me know.

Just imagine these bottom cabinets and the countertop above them gone, and you can see how close the layout of my kitchen is to the picture above. I want to remove this section of cabinets and countertop anyway, so I can have a proper dining area.

I'm so excited about finding the inspiration above that I'm almost ready to start demo now.