Before And After: Kitchen Remodel Pics

I'm finally posting some pictures of our kitchen remodel.  Although I've put these pictures on facebook, I thought it would be cool to pair the before and after pictures together on my blog.  We still have a second phase to finish a few of the final pieces to the remodel, but it's been nice to take a break for a little bit and enjoy living in our new home without the constant drive to finish.  Overall, this has been a very rewarding experience, and I can't be more thankful to have such a nice kitchen in our first house.  It really is a great change as the kitchen has gone from my least favorite part of the house to one of my favorite rooms.

BEFORE


AFTER


Our overall goal for style was to make the room feel larger and more like a kitchen than an adobe dwelling.  Also we wanted to remove the dark, heavy feel that the backsplash, drawer hardware, and paint color gave the room.  In this picture, we ripped out the heavy tile backsplash and replaced it with beadboard; painted the cabinets; replaced the cabinet hardware; replaced the sink and sink hardware; installed a light above the sink; added needed electrical outlets; installed new butcherblock countertops and painted the room a great warm yellow.



BEFORE

AFTER


I love how deep the new sink is and the sink hardware is great.  We removed two of the cabinet doors as well as the wood space in the center to give some open shelves in the middle of the cabinet space.  This helped update the kitchen with a current trend and allowed for some of our dishes to be displayed.  I love the old glasses made of carnival glass at the top that my grandma gave me.  She bought them for me from an antique shop and I've kept them stored under my bed for many years waiting to display them.







BEFORE


AFTER


The stove top/microwave was one of the main reasons we realized that we HAD to go all out on renovating the kitchen.  The microwave was too large for the space, and it wasn't possible to reach and view the cook space below.  We will eventually add a hood above the newly installed stove.  We had to cut out the cabinet space below the stove top, but we added a storage space by adding a cabinet next to the refrigerator.






BEFORE


AFTER


BEFORE


AFTER


The refrigerator felt like it was floating in the room and didn't match the rest of the black appliances. We moved the refrigerator to the right.  This allowed us to build it in so it felt like it was part of the kitchen and not floating on its own.  It also made room for a new cabinet and a place for the microwave. 






BEFORE


AFTER


This was one of the other reasons that we felt we needed to make more drastic updates to the kitchen right away.  The wall oven was only 24" making it difficult to fit a small cookie sheet in it without touching the front and the back of the oven.  The kitchen also was missing a food pantry.  By making a few moves, we opened up the space to add in shelves, which we evently, will add a door to the front of the pantry.  There was a short "desk" next to the former wall oven, which we removed.  We plan on adding a window seat in the open space in phase two.






BEFORE


AFTER


The laundry room is next to the kitchen.  We painted the walls the same color as the kitchen (also so the walls wouldn't be the same color as the floor).  To make painting easier, we took the washer and dryer out, and when we put them back in, we switched them so the washer's on the left and the dryer's on the right.  Then they open like suicide doors making it more convenient to move wet laundry into the dryer.  The cabinets were also removed to add additional shelf storage that stretches the entire length of the wall space.






BEFORE


AFTER


The kitchen table space feels larger with using the bookselves in the corner and the large, glass table.  We removed the rail around the room, plastered and sanded the walls, put on two coats of primer and two coats of paint to cover the "adobe feeling" hunter green.  I'm really pleased with how the color turned out.  It was a huge relief to see the color in my mind become the same color on the walls.  We got good advice from several friends to buy smaller, test size buckets of paint and also to buy good paint.  Once painting the test paint on a section of the walls, we realized that the color on the wall was not the same as the color swatch.  So, we took it back and had them add a little red to it.  They also printed the new paint color ingredients on the side of the test bucket.  So, when we went back to get gallon sizes, we knew it would be the same as what we tested on the walls.



It's fun to look back and realize the room's potential has now become reality.

Little Surprises

We recently turned the last unfinished room of the house into a music, media, guest room.  I love the wall color in the room, which helps bring out the richness of the newly refinished wood floors.  Plus, it's so nice to feel like we're using every room in the house.  Hopefully, we'll have guests come and enjoy the room too.  We've lovingly named the room "David's room."  I'm also excited for Josh to have a space for his music.  Maybe he can host guitar jams once again.  It's always great to see him pick up his guitar.



The cool thing in this picture could easily go unnoticed, but not to me.  We decided to get a daybed so the room would have a couch feel instead of guitars in a bedroom.  To help the daybed feel more day than bed, we put a whole assortment of cool pillows on it.  However, to finish it off, I wanted just three more Euro (big square) pillows.  I had found a couple before for a steal of $10 each (Ralph Lauren) from Home Goods and was hoping to find such a steal again.  After searching many stores for bedding, I was unable to find nice, big Euro pillows without spending too much.  Deciding to wait, I kind of put the search on the backburner.  But to my surprise, my dear hubbie remembered my hope to get those Euro pillows to finish off the bed.  He surprised me by going back to Home Goods on his lunch hour and finding three Tommy Bahama Euro pillows for $10 each!!  I squeeled with delight when I came home that night to my surprise, and I love them all the more because of his thoughtfulness.

love.

I heart Chick-fil-a.

Everything AND the kitchen sink.

The sound of ice falling into the ice maker. The smell of fresh popcorn. The feel of running water over your hands while washing dishes. Sounds funny to say, but those are the things I am excited to welcome back into our kitchen.

We’ve been in our new home for about a month now. The day we first saw this house, we loved it.  Similar to picking out my wedding dress, this house was the first one we looked at in real life, and it didn't take us long to realize that it was the one. Great yard, big ol' trees and an awesome deck. But from the moment we walked in, I didn’t like the colors of the kitchen and couldn’t wait to do some work on it. We toyed with the idea of only painting the walls and cabinets at first and waiting to do the rest of the kitchen update in phases. But as we came across a few issues such as the microwave being installed less than a foot and a half above the cooktop, a 24-inch wall oven that you couldn't fit a cookie sheet in and no pantry, we quickly realized that we would need to go ahead and take the plunge to update all of the kitchen at once.

This being our first remodel experience, it’s been a learning process for us both. First of all, it’s taken quite a bit more time that I originally envisioned. There were some days where the time factor began to wear on us, and we were having trouble seeing the light at the end of the remodeling tunnel. But after about a month, we are practically done. I’m so looking forward to posting before and after pictures that I might go ahead and do that before e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g is done. We still need to do a little touch up paint, caulk and trim, order a hood/fan to install above the stove and build a window seat and shelves next to it. But considering all we’ve accomplished, that is a very small list, which continues to dwindle.

The remodel has also taught us to get creative when it comes to cooking. Because the kitchen was a working zone, all of our dishes, cutting boards, knives, utensils, pots and pans, etc. remained packed up in one of the bedrooms. And the fridge, pantry, and microwave were in the garage. And once we ripped out the countertops and sink, we no longer had running water in the kitchen making it difficult to wash what dishes we did pull out for necessity.


Washing dishes in the bathroom sink.


Clean dishes air drying in the laundry room.


We ate plenty of grilling, take out and had two awesome moms bring us some home baked meals with love to help us through too.

Slowly but surely, things have made their way back to their rightful places in our new kitchen. And as of this morning (now that the kitchen sink has running water again), we officially have a fully furnished/functioning kitchen. This has been just as exciting as putting my dishes away into the freshly painted cabinets. Can't wait to try out that new sink and wash them in it!



My dishes in their new "home." (and a sneak peak of our new kitchen pictures coming soon!)

I know the years will pass away quickly, and we’ll soon forget the inconveniences of our first few weeks of living here. And I guess that’s how it should be. But for now, every time we go in the kitchen, we just stop and enjoy all the work that’s done.