Emily Hurley Love this thread! Can't wait to see what comes up and I'm so tempted to post my current kitchen. :)

lewis + smith House I bought for myself, currently in design.

gustave007 lewis+smith.....Please share all your before & after when you finish, Good Luck!!!

onthefence The upside lewis+smith is that someone left a magnalite pan with lid in your kitchen!

parsleycarrots lewis+smith: Love the pole saw and snow shovel. Of course they're stored in the kitchen! Where else?

lewis + smith This was after the seller cleaned up! House is currently gutted. kitchen will move to second floor where the view is. Current views are reprogrammed as laundry and kids bath.

handymam lewis+smith, it sure will be hard to top that!

parsleycarrots, I don't really think that kitchen is all that bad...It needs some finishing touches, but I would venture to say that many kitchens in the design dilemma discussions are not much different than that one.

Now lewis+smith's kitchen? That is truly a contender!

Marie Hebson's interiorsBYDESIGN Inc. LOL too funny - and agreed, it isn't that bad. Just needs a cool backsplash and lighting, window treatments.

...what was your question again?...

Purcell Quality, Inc. Lewis + Smith Wins... that kitchen was a disaster. Props to you for taking on that big of a challenge! A lot of the time in turn of the century homes, with kitchens that are updated( In the past 40 years) you get that chopped up feel as with your son's new condo.

Lots of real estate " flippers" will update the kitchen with new cabinets and countertops for resale but will not spend anytime fixing and re-designing the functionality of the kitchen. This is why it is important to hire someone who knows what they are doing!

We have a lot of before and after photos on our page, be sure to check them out.

Best of luck!

curacaoblue Wow Lewis and smith! Looks like hoarders "before". I hope you post your "after" pics when you finish and best of luck to you!

curacaoblue I don't think the original is bad at all. In fact I would have killed for a kitchen that nice during my rental years.

condoreno Here's our condo kitchen from a recent foreclosure purchase. We've gutted the entire thing and are in the process of renovation.

Emily Hurley Oops! Looks like the photo didn't attach. Want to try again?

victoria4831 That first one is set up terribly! Who puts a stove right next to the sink like that? Where would you put a dish to dry?

77barbarella77 The first picture is all about a wrong functionality. Design is not bad enough to state the worst kitchen ever!

Lindsey Foster We LOVED the kitchen when we moved into our first home. After living in it, not so much. It didn't look that terrible, but the quality of workmanship and functionality left a lot to be desired. Holes under the floor had never been sealed, so there were rodent and snail problems. Huge vertical beam that closed things in. No wall cupboards or bench space to speak of. Massive pantry where long lost foodstuffs went to die. No high storage (previous owners were both around 5' tall, hubby and I are both around 6' tall. We wanted high cupboards!!).

We gutted the kitchen completely, kept the plumbing and stove in essentially the same position, but changed the way it worked. No more tongue and groove flooring for benchtops (soaked up every drop of moisture). Reenforced the horizontal beam so the small vertical one could be removed. Tile instead of cheap wood laminate flooring. Tall cupboards to utilise all the wall space. I calculated it out, and the final product gave us more floor space, more bench space, and more cupboard space. Plus it's pretty.

Planned and pre purchased most major materials ahead of time including appliances and cabinetry, but the project itself was completed in two weeks. The after photo here isn't exactly done, there's now a wine fridge in the empty recess you can see on the left of the bench, you can see beams and cornices and painting aren't exactly done in the photo either, but it gives the idea. Total project cost $8,000.

handymam Lindsey, I love the tiles! Great job! Was that your punch list on the white board?

Susan H This is the basement apartment kitchen that a friend has. There's barely room to walk to the sink between cabinets.

handymam And you need a magnifying glass to see the sink! It is tiny!!

Lindsey Foster I still love those tiles.. we used them in a bathroom project later that year, too. Ties in nicely :-)

Actually, just to add to the chaos, the renovation was done with a 3 year old and a 7 year old in the house and a lot of external commitments. The whiteboard was our weekly schedule of who had to be where and when so mum and dad could keep themselves sane!

pedalva ParsleyCarrots, what a great thread! I wish I had some digital photos of our original kitchen, as it was a disaster as well: brown fridge, almond off-level stove, black dishwasher, all on top of screaming yellow vinyl. The real kickers were the four (yes, FOUR) doors in one corner of the room! When my husband pulled out the soffits above the also-removed upper cabinets, he found that the flying squirrels that had taken up residence in the attic had used that space as their litter box!

kathleen MK Wish I had pictures of the THREE months we spent without a kitchen sink thanks to a lighting strike and SLOW insurance recommended contractors. We had a nice open floor plan where they jack hammered the slab to repair the plumbing leak between where the island sink was and the defunct dishwasher. How did lighting cause this and not burn the house? It hit the sprinkler system and the water conducted the electricity through the plumbing and arced with rebar in the slab. it took month to discover because the hot water line was leaking below the slab until a heavy rain saturated the soil below. Best part was getting insurance to pay for removing the 2 layers of wall paper and new flooring. Worst parts living on microwave dinners and dish washing in the powder room for 3 months just staring at blank concrete. We got the raised bar to hide the sink like I wanted but hubby didn't want to slow them down by asking them to fix cosmetic design flaws. It's better but a long way to go in the window less galley

kelli88 We bought grandma's house in November, and this was the epicenter of the horror. Yikes! I think I win this contest easily!

kelli88 Forgot--the range. Circa 1972?

danspiteri We had these beauties when we moved in. The oven door was cracked and the microwave door had some kind of burn hole in it. Swapped the electric out for gas and replaced the microwave with a hood, among other things...

itsjena Here's another one for you...
We love camping....but...
...using laundry tubs and a hotplate for a year was enough!!
(we have to do some finishing touches yet)

lisaf1218 Hoping to start our gut and remodel within a month or so. If the very dark cabinets aren't bad enough, we have a d/w that doesn't fully open because it hits the refridgerator. Top it all off with pink carpeting and you have one hideous kitchen :-) Cannot wait for it all to be gone!

Kathryn Peltier Design OK, I must say, the kitchen at the top that got this discussion started is the dumbest layout I have EVER seen! You would think that someone with the smallest shred of common sense could have done something better than that!!

patp3005 ParsleyCarrots, you win! I literally laughed out loud looking at the kitchen you shared. I agree with Kathryn. What were they thinking? My husband is a custom cabinetmaker/kitchen designer. Can't wait to show him this thread. He'll love it!! Lindsey, your redesign rocks! Truly beautiful.

Alfred-Grace Roque Suggest to put more windows to lighten dark side of your ruin kitchen, good luck

Alfred-Grace Roque To lewis+smith

scottishflower I'll post our prior kitchen and how we renovated but you'll have to wait a few days. I've got to get to bed now!

Maryl Hershelman This is a typical home "flip".....beige galore. Just an idea when flipping a home....work on the bare bones (electrical, plumbing upgrades) and leave the cabinetry and flooring to whomever buys the house to actually live in it.....or better yet quite buying houses just to bland it up for quick sale. Someone probably wanted to live in this house but house flipper out bid them. I was totally disgusted with all the "home improvements" that were obviously done for resale....my favorite (in 2001 mind you) were the dreaded borders and/or stencils....deal breaker every time. That and crappy laminate flooring and beige Berber carpeting....

andreaconnorh The "before" pictures should be obvious enough. They were taken just before we closed on the sale of our first house. Where do we begin? Let's start with the faux brick feature and move onto the hideous green cabinets with - what's that? - oh. It's chicken wire and filthy red checked fabric. Okay. Some might think that the complete absence of counters would be problematic. However, if you have your dryer and washer (see how it empties into the sink? Nice.) in the kitchen you could set up your coffee maker and cutting board right on top. You can chop vegetables and work the spin cycle all at once. Efficiency!
So, what did we do? We closed on the house, got the keys and the next morning we attacked the cabinets with crowbars. Good- bye, ugly. Since there were no counters we were then left with a collection of appliances in an empty room. We installed maple cabinets and white corian counters. We moved the washer and dryer into an enclosed porch that we converted into a laundry room. We ripped out the tragic fake brick wall and covered over the damaged surface with iridescent inch by inch tile which reflects the natural light and creates a brighter feeling in the room. We salvaged the big old mid-century sink. New light fixtures, refinished the wood floors and lots of elbow grease later...it became our favorite place to hang out and entertain. There's hope!

andreaconnorh Lewis + Smith, that's just...oh my. I guess I took it for granted that my kitchen, though ten shade of ugly, at least had a ceiling. Best of luck!

pveale Before and after. A lot of painting. The best was the granite counters ; )

wildnorski Foreclosure but the rest of house had original 1900's woodwork. Kitchen and bath were done on a super budget. Took bat off wall in bathroom. We wrapped the walls with thin sheetrock rather than gut to studs. Due to not going to studs required us not to have wall cabinets so we used 2 metal shelf unites which is in code. We found a roll top tall cabinet that holds small appliances and other items. We are blessed with an original pantry with the original cabinet to ceiling. We were on a tight time schedule, and used bead board on the ceilingand left natural with a poly finish. Scandinavian influence.Set up coffee bar with nephew's art work

wedgito Reno begins Memorial Day weekend! I particularly like that the oven is closer to the sink than the dishwasher. AND that the 2 are right next to each other. So charming, and painful!

wedgito but here's my other house's before/after that's an awesome motivation

Lizabeth This was a major challenge. Sorry I don't have the afters

parsleycarrots wedgito--But raspberry pink cabinets are all the rage (wink!).

These "befores" are all great examples of missed opportunities, flipper fuddling, and just rotten kitchen (re)design. Keep 'em coming!

mousemaker there's a thread on here where you can vote on the worst kitchen for someone to win a makeover..some of the pictures are truly awful..as are these!! holy cow. I thought my old kitchen was bad! I wish I h ad photos of my kitchen that used to be a closet! seriously!!! a closet!