Hi all,
I just finished a DIY make-over of our original Eichler kitchen, and I wanted to share some pictures with you all.
When we bought our house in 2002, I have to admit that I was not immediately in love with the gold-speckled formica countertops, the swing-out table, and the sliding doors. This is how our kitchen looked like when we bought our house. It had been painted white, and the original sliding doors had been replaced by flimsy wooden panels.
I was very tempted to rip out the kitchen and replace it completely. Luckily, by reading this forum and other great Eichler websites, I quickly started to appreciate the value of having an original kitchen. The more Eichlers I saw with "country-style" kitchens, the more determined I was to keep our original cabinets. In the mean time, we did replace the fridge and dishwasher, and we will replace our oven in the immediate future (none of these were the original ones when we bought our house), but our cooktop is still the original from 1959!
We wanted to keep our cabinets, but we also wanted a more modern look. So I decided to strip all the paint and to stain the wood black. It was almost like traveling back in time, when I removed all those paint layers, and got to to see all the colors that had been used to paint our kitchen (white, green, light brown, yellow, and finally the original dark brown with white speckles).
Since the sliding doors were not the original ones anymore, we replaced them by semi-see-through acrylic plastic ones. We put small door handles on them to make them easy to open. We did all the work ourselves (except the cutting of the acrylic doors), and the total remodel has cost us about $ 750 (the acrylic doors took out most of the budget at $ 500). Here are the pics of our new kitchen, which is ready for the next 50 years!
Nice job on a limited budget. I hope that you believe imitation is the sincerest form of flattery because I'm going to copy your ideas for door handles and the towel rack on the sink cabinet when I do an interim remodel of our original kitchen.
Really nice work! It appears that you have the same model as my 59 Eichler, which is floor plan 1224, an A. Quincy Jones design. You can see it at http://totheweb.com/eichler/floor_plan.html. Is that your plan? What Eichler development do you live in?
When I bought my house in 2000 the kitchen was mostly original but the swing out table was gone and the stove top had been replaced. As part of a 2006 remodel, I decided to move the kitchen to the other side of the partial height wall (into what was originally the dining room), so my original kitchen is no more. Here is my "new" floor plan, after the remodel. http://totheweb.com/eichler/images/subpage_photos/floor-plan-1224.gif
Barry