A New Kitchen

It has been eight months since we left home for this opportunity to serve. We can't believe how fast time passes!

This post will likely be of most interest to our family. Just a short update about our little apartment.

Remember the early pictures of our apartment? Here's one or two to remind you what the kitchen looked liked. The tile was black with dirt and grease and there was virtually no counter top space.

But we have been working on it for nearly eight months, now -- whenever we could find a few minutes here and there. We figure we will be living here for about two years and it is worth it to make it a little nicer. And the couple who follows us here will likely appreciate it, as well.

Note the homemade bread on the counter. The bread here tends to be a bit heavy and stale. So we make all of our own bread. And boy is it good! Of course, there is a down side. It seems that we have this uncontrollable urge to eat a good chunk of it just as it comes out of the oven! Hot bread and honey -- yummy! You see, we have this great bread recipe that is easy and irresistible. You ought to try it sometime (inside joke)!

But we try to keep our landlord from learning about the improvements. We hear that if one makes such improvements and the landlord finds out, they have been know to raise the rent because the place is much nicer and worth more now!! Go figure!

As you can see, we've added a bit of counter top by shifting things around in the apartment, dug out and replaced the grout (and yes, it was VERY difficult!), covered the mess under the sink and changed the hangers for kitchen tools, etc. It has made a big difference and we like it a lot better!

We've also added quite a bit of new shelving here and there. For example, though the spice rack between the wall cabinets appears in all of these pictures, it was actually one of the first things we added. There's probably one or two more things we will do, yet, but it's coming along pretty good.

Next post -- the new bathroom!
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