the kitchen in progress

Mowgli hanging out on the accent mosaic

So our kitchen is well under way. The tiling should be done by Wednesday. It's pretty exciting to see it come together.

Our house, which was built in 1977, had the traditional Panamanian Kitchen lay-out. That is, an enclosed kitchen with maid's room and bathroom. This kind of kitchen was designed with a maid in mind; a maid who cooks and lives in the kitchen. In it's favour, this design also keeps the heat of the kitchen separate from the rest of the house. For me, as someone who loves cooking and hanging out in the kitchen (and as someone without a full-time live in maid) this design is not ideal. Also the bathroom in the kitchen was the maid's bathroom and I'm sure, had the original 1977 fixtures. It was not a nice bathroom, and was the only bathroom downstairs. I wanted a nicer more practical downstairs bathroom and an open kitchen.

So we've opened the kitchen and changed the maid's room bathroom configuration. We kept the maid's room because it is a standard feature in Panamanian houses and our maid does sleep over once or twice a week when I teach at night. But our kids are getting older and soon this won't be necessary, and the little room can easily be converted to storage or pantry in the future. The bathroom opens to the entrance hall of the house, and it has a connecting door to the maid's room. So now the bathroom can serve as a powder room.

The tiling is almost finished in the kitchen. We are tiling with large whites tiles and mosaic on accent walls.

This reno is something I've been dreaming of since we moved into the house. I've had some misgivings about changing the very traditional, kitchen-maid's-room configuration (will any Panamanian buy a house with an open kitchen?). But in the end, we decided that we should renovate to our own needs.

Next week I should have some pictures of the bathroom.