My Old Missoula House Came With a Piano. Now It’s a Planter

When I first moved back to Missoula, I wrote a story about the way that I came to own my house. I'll be the first to admit that the whole thing was pretty lucky. A family friend of mine wanted to sell their house and agreed to sell it to me. I'm still so grateful for what feels like a gift.

The house was in need of a little TLC and in the story I recounted the changes we made in just one week of renovations. It was a lot of work, but the transformation was truly amazing. Since then, we've continued our renovations.

Our Kitchen Renovation

The kitchen might have been the hardest project so far because of how many things needed to be updated, and we were trying to feed ourselves at the same time.

We started with updating some of the easier features, like light fixtures.

Then, we moved on to replacing all the cabinets. We originally were hoping we could just paint what was there, but modern cookware doesn't fit well into cabinets from the 1950s, so we opted to replace them.

When we got to the stage where we had no appliances and had to replace the floor, well, that took a lot of patience (and a few expletives.)

But once the new floor was installed, it really started to feel like our new kitchen.

And with cabinets, countertop, and new appliances, the kitchen was nearly unrecognizable. Here's a look at the old kitchen.

And here's what the new kitchen looks like.

There's still some work to do on the backsplash but otherwise, we really love the new kitchen.

But that's not even my favorite renovation project.

When we moved into the house there was an old piano that had been left behind. I already owned a piano, so now I had two. Instead of getting rid of it, I decided I wanted to do something a bit more clever.