Cooking up a bad case of DIY

I have a lot of pictures of our kitchen renovations, so I'm going to split them up into a few posts. These are all from the day we got the condo.

This one is standing just to the side of our front door. That little hallway looking opening is the kitchen, and the two doors on either side are small closets. Probably a coat closet and a pantry. Down the hall is the bathroom and baby's room. If you're bored try counting how many different wallpapers the picture has. Four would be the correct answer, though the wallpaper designer is just plain wrong.
Here's a shot straight into the kitchen. The fridge is behind the closet on the right. The ceiling is so low, the lighting leaves much to be desired (along with an awful bulging patch job), and the entire kitchen is just cramped and nasty. This was definitely not my dream kitchen. But still, it has potential.
A closet look in, check out the amazing variety of tiles. Sarcasm intended. The view from the dining room. Wallpaper the back of cabinets? And maybe a door or two? You better believe it. They knew how to not let anything go to waste. In this case, probably not the best trait. The kitchen has a snack bar (is that what it's called?) and some light blocking cabinets hanging in the 'pass through'.

It would have been nice to be able to live with the kitchen a while before we tore it out. But it was disgusting. No amount of cleaning could help it. Case in point. The lovely glued-on-top of the original counter tiling job. Who does that? What was wrong with the counter before?! The poor tile job left plenty of room for all sorts of food and nastiness to be stuck everywhere.

Check out this close up of the sink. They just. stopped. tiling. Most of the tile isn't even grouted, if it looks like it is, that's just because it's filled with nastiness. Beyond weird.

And then the floor tile. Because the linoleum must have been so bad they decided it would be a better idea to cover it with outdoor tiles. Just crazy glued to the linoleum. No tile saw? No problem, just snap 'em and fit what you can. Grouting seem like a crazy thing to do? Just caulk 'em! (Yeah, they CAULKED the spaces between the tile!). Wanting a seamless effect? Cover it all with Terra cotta outdoor paint.

Weird.