Striving for that perfect country cottage kitchen

As mentioned before our kitchen stands in arrested development. Looking at the job that lies ahead , makes me feel a bit overwhelmed but I keep focusing on the reward that is at the end of this particular challenge. Much has been done all ready to get it to this point, however we've still a lot of work ahead of us. This is the ONLY before picture I have. Across from this wall is the sink, window and cabinets that sit on either side of the sink. I remember taking a lot of pictures when the job began, but I don't know if they accidentally got deleted from my camera or what. Oh well. Here you see the west side of my galley style kitchen. We'd all ready begun work by this point. Originally there used to be a fleshy colored , broken tile that ran behind the stove to about midway up the wall. Not attractive! You can also see where there is nothing to the right of the stove. Wasted space. There was also a 1980's era fluorescent light fixture that took up the entire ceiling. Eww! Okay, so it seemed that way to me :0) That came down this last go around. I guess you could say we are now beginning phase 3 of a kitchen face lift.
Here you can see where we've added some cabinet space and a bit of counter/work space. This is just a stock cabinet that we had to cut down so it was the same height as my original cabinets and if you look closely you can see where the edges have been sanded away to match an existing detail of the original cabinetry. Yes, those are 1954 cabinets you see to the left of the stove. The plan I have for the new cabinet is to remove the door and have hubby fit the space for baskets that will slide out like drawers. I'm not quite sure what we're going to do about the existing drawer yet. As you can see it doesn't match the others but I know there is something I can do to make it blend. The counters are temporary.
The microwave was moved over the stove to give me more counter/work space. The cabinetry above the microwave is also stock. I'm not sure yet what I want to do here. I know if we keep the doors, the hardware must be changed. I just have to share that it's been so great to have the extra work space and the look of the kitchen just seems "neater" now that the microwave has been "uplifted".

Another view of the of the microwave. As you can see, open shelving was added as well. This is all "new" to the kitchen. We will be removing the existing molding since we cannot "match" it as it's to old so now I've been looking at something that's got a bit more substance to it. I'm also thinking that I'd like to add an applique of some kind above the cabinet doors. It seems to be that even with a chunkier molding, there will still be this big empty space there. See the original cabinets to the left? Here I have a dilemma. Do I keep the decorative curves at the bottom or do I change it up? I really like the technique Kim used over at One Woman's cottage life where she added molding to the bottom of the cabinets. This idea could work here and give us enough of an under cabinet "skirt", to add task lighting.Here you can see where we've added bead board to the side of the added cabinet. We won't do any finishing molding until the new counters have been installed. Along the east wall of my kitchen there is another "end" cabinet that will have bead board attached.Yay! Recessed lighting installed! We still need to finish patching the ceiling.Yes! That is a dishwasher you see. What a find it was. We walked into Sears and it was on clearance, marked down over $200 !!! It didn't have a box and had been the store floor model. It came with the same kind of warranty a boxed model would have had, so we snatched it up! I admit, it was hard to give up the storage space in order to make room for this beauty, but it's been so worth it. With 7 people in the house (a lot of the time) and sometimes more, you can just imagine how many dishes we'd use. Before this we did them all by hand. Talk about having dishpan hands! Now, not only to do I save myself and the kids from that chore, but we are conserving water and energy too!
Wallpaper and border has all ready been removed too. This go around we'd like to get the walls and ceiling patched, sanded and prepped for paint. We'd like to add the new moldings also. We plan on removing all the original cabinet doors and hardware, sanding the doors and scrubbing the original hinges with paint remover so we can remove layers and layers of paint. What I can see, this kitchen has been four different colors all ready! While re-doing the kitchen has meant it's continually dusty and messy, which are huge pet peeves of mine, I know that one day it will be crisp and clean again. Also, I know I want to try and go in a more vintage direction with the decorating and while that part is still a long way down the road, I'll have fun shopping & envisioning my "new" old space.