Ice. Damn.

About six months ago we bought a fantastic midcentury modern split-level house in northeast Ohio. We had leased it for a year, and then our mortgage finally came through. Hooray! We love the house. It's close to the university where my husband and I teach, there's an elementary school right behind our house (something I'll appreciate in a few years when our daughter is ready to go to kindergarten), and it's bigger and more open than our previous house in Indiana. Plus it has an awesome midcentury vibe.

But now that I have lived in this house for about a year and a half, I'm starting to notice the problems inherent in this house. Too numerous and frustrating to list here. I'll list them all in a separate post. For now, let's start with the kitchen.

This kitchen is WAY bigger, with WAY more counter space than my old built-in-1925-Indiana house. So that's good. The problem is that the kitchen is laid out in such an inconvenient way. To get from the sink to the wall oven (which is a teeny oven that can't fit a whole cookie sheet), I have to walk around an island in the middle. I also have to walk around the island to get to the refrigerator (only the smallest size would fit in the nook provided) and the microwave. The dishwasher is in a weird spot that makes it inconvenient to unload (I can't open a cabinet door in the island when it's open). The dishwasher is also just about the cheapest model available. The counters, though spacious and white, are acrylic with seams that collect dirt and grime and who knows what else.

The kitchen itself is really dark. It has one window above the sink, and the cabinets are a very

dark wood. The floor is a dingy '80s brownish yellowish mottled tile, and the backsplash... don't get me started. UGLY off white and brown tiles with dark brown grout and "natural" looking leaf patterns in the accent tiles. Under cabinet lighting is fluorescent. I replaced the old stained-glass light fixture with something simpler and brighter, but it still doesn't provide enough light.

Then there's the ceiling. It's low. The rest of our main floor has lovely vaulted ceilings with beams (OK, so they're cosmetic, but they're nice). Walking into the kitchen is oppressive.

And now, the kicker. This is northeast Ohio. It snows. And we get ice dams. And our roof leaks in the kitchen. Right now I'm listening to the rhythm of water dripping from my kitchen ceiling into two buckets. We can't get the roof fixed until the snow is gone, and that's going to be some

time, according to the groundhog. So until then, drip, drip, drip.

So. Here we are. Great house. Problems. Blog. I'm going to

make over this midcentury house one room at a time on a very tight budget, starting with this kitchen. IKEA, here I come. My first step is to raise the money to do the remodel. I'll be selling a bunch of stuff on Craigslist and eBay, teaching extra voice lessons, selling veggies on the side of the road, whatever. I'm good with DIY... I tiled our Indiana bathroom while I was 8 months pregnant, built a patio (also while pregnant), refinished a wood floor, and I've done more painting than I care to say. We'll see how much of this we can do ourselves.