Zone 1 - before

Area 1 is the north edge of my kitchen, where this lovely teak buffet once belonging to my grandmother resides. It is/was supposed to be the home to all my Christmas dishes, but it was full of large silver pieces and empty boxes some of the Christmas plates had come out of this past year. Reasoning that the boxes would just take more room and I wouldn't want to bother putting them in and taking them out every time, I chucked the boxes.

Oh wait, this is the before post. Ok, so there's the buffet with all the Christmas stuff scattered and stacked; the microwave which looks like a before picture but is really an after since A cleaned it a week or so ago; the horribly small and virtually unusable corner where large trays and things are stacked, including the hanging pot rack I so desperately need, still in the box, 3 years later; the opposite, larger corner where the humongous popcorn maker is supposed to go, and hey, that's where that extra trash can went; and the popcorn maker itself. The area surrounding is cheap paneling, lousy linoleum, and old windows. One of which, you can sort of see, is home to a HUGE wasps' nest, which really needs to be taken care of, like, yesterday. Any ideas that don't involve getting close to the darn thing?

So today I'm beginning to tackle this zone, one piece at a time. News at 11. Actually that's probably a pretty accurate estimate.