To celebrate our one year Kitchen-iversary, I thought I’d do a post sharing our kitchen remodel! It’s been one year since the remodel, and I’m just as happy as I was when it was finally completed. I love every single thing about it and wouldn’t change anything. All that agonizing over each decision must have been worth it!
We bought our home 4 years ago as a foreclosure. It had sat vacant for over 3 years and it was safe to say it was the eye-sore of the neighborhood. We’ve spent the last four years fixing it up, room by room, and there’s still a long way to go! Here is an ORIGINAL before shot of the kitchen. There were some things we had to do immediately, just to make it livable. The ceiling was full of water damage and had to be torn down and replaced. Along with it came that horrid fluorescent fixture and the very oddly placed ceiling fan. This gave us the opportunity to add some can lights. We also chose to go ahead and replace the circa-1988 appliances that were barely functioning. We had the tile steam cleaned, and that was about all we could do for the time being.
We lived with it like this (below) for three years, and I was dying to get out the sledge hammer the entire time. But I had to patient. Now, the kitchen wasn’t awful by any means. We had a ton of cabinetry and the color scheme was at least neutral. I mean, it could have been avocado green or something….. But those Formica counters were killing me and just the general grimy-ness of 25 years of people using the kitchen. That’s one bonus of building your own house, at least you know that it’s all your own dirt! (However, now I can say that it feels like my very own, brand new kitchen, so stick with me!)
Three years later…the day had finally come!!! Queue the sledgehammer!
Haha. Ok, not quite a sledgehammer, but it still did some damage. Enough damage that when I painted the hallway walls and trim some 9 months later, I actually found blood on the wall. BLOOD! That tile floor was brutal to remove! LITERAL blood, sweat, and tears here folks.
Too keep things cohesive, we decided to also tackle the adjoining utility room and downstairs bath, so here are some before pics of those. Now, I will say things aren’t always such a mess, but we were already in the process of cleaning out all the cabinets at this point. Man, this is bringing back memories. That bathroom was awful!! Fake marble seashell sink and all! (THREE YEARS!!!). We tried to do most of the demo and prep work ourselves, but we did have a professional come out and remove the peninsula and do some simple cabinet modification. Funny story: You’d think that removing and reinstalling appliances would be easy-peasy. However, in the process of reinstalling our oven/microwave oven combo, my husband managed to blow it up. Just slightly blown up. Like “boom……….BOOM”. Wait…was that what I think it was?? Luckily, we were able to get it repaired instead of having to buy a new one because it was actually quite an expensive piece. No ordinary microwave (even though we only actually use one button).
Phase 1 included demolition of the peninsula and the cabinet with the sink in the laundry room. For budget reasons, we had to keep the rest of the cabinetry. They were in good shape, built with nice, solid wood. It just didn’t make sense to get rid of them and triple our budget. The compromise, however, was to remove the peninsula, relocate the dishwasher and have a really fantastic new island built that would make the whole place feel new and significantly improve the flow of the room. We used Higher Rock Construction (Rogers, AR) for our cabinet modification, cabinet painting, and island build. With that giant peninsula in the center, it just cut the room in half, making each half feel small despite the fairly large size of the room. When we entertained, everyone ended up trapped on one side or the other. It just didn’t work. Our cabinet people during demo, had the great idea to relocate one of the large cabinets out of the peninsula to the laundry room in place of the small cabinet with the sink. This ended up working out great and actually gave us some additional counter space in the laundry room! Even better..it was free! They also had to build a new section to house the relocated dishwasher and cut off the scallop detail that had been above the sink and stove. Already, the room felt so much bigger!
Phase 2 was prepping the cabinets for painting. My husband and I removed all the doors and filled and sanded the old hinge holes. We planned to use new, recessed hinges when we rehung the doors in order to modernize the look of the cabinets. That made a HUGE difference. What a mess it was to live through this though….did I mention we had a 9 month old baby and were still washing bottles?!
Next was where the fun really began. Cabinet painting! We hired this part out (Higher Rock Construction) so that it would look professional, plus we didn’t have the extra time to spend. Living through this reno was pretty difficult. Once the sink came out, all we had was a tiny bathroom sink on the first floor. Because we were not able to remove the soffit (the cabinets were built to the wall and backless, so they could not be removed and rehung), we decided to cover about half of it up with crown molding. We used a baseboard molding turned upside down, and then mounted a large piece of crown on top of that. The result was fantastic! We actually attempted the crown molding ourselves at first. Spent about 6 hours trying to get the first two pieces right, and eventually called out a professional. Craigslist to the rescue! He ended up doing the entire kitchen in under two hours! And that was with the double layer of molding! This crown made such a huge, huge difference. I just can’t even believe it.
At this point we were pulling together all of our finishing choices like paint color, granite, flooring and backsplash. I guess we will call this Phase 3. This was the part I truly agonized over, but it all came together just right. We used Flooring America in Springdale for our floors, and they have a designer in-house that I took all my final choices to for a second opinion. Eric (my husband) had actually encouraged me to choose a floor tile that was way out of my comfort zone. I had envisioned just a basic cream tile, but he convinced me to go with a dark, earthy gray. I was worried about the flooring tile being too dark, but the designer assured me that it would help ground the space. And boy did it! I really, really love the floors now. We chose Sherwin Williams Amazing Grey for the wall color and Sherwin Williams Alabaster for the cabinets. I basically searched for paint colors on Pinterest and looked at gobs and gobs of pictures of rooms that had been painted those colors. I wanted the theme to basically be “greige”. I wanted warm grays throughout, with a Fixer Upper feel, if you know what I mean. Did I mention that I LOVE CHIP AND JOANNA GAINS?! They are my heroes. Her style was my inspiration for the room. Here was my attempt at a “design board.” How do you like that sneaky-peaky of my island inspiration?!!
Next came an even more fun part! COUNTERTOPS! Everything was just getting more and more fun at this point. BYE-BYE FORMICA! Hello, Snowfall Granite! I loved that this granite has so many different shades of greige, and even a hint of green. I also decided to paint the cabinets in the laundry room a dark gray (I painted those myself). I chose Sherwin Williams Warm Stone, which is actually the color on the exterior of our house (I will recap all products used at the bottom of this post). Oh, and I have to stop and mention the GIANT sink too. Almost too giant actually. When they went to drop it in place, it actually hit the inset cabinets below and we had to cut the top part of it off. Luckily, you cant see it unless you are on the floor looking up. Also, the sink was so big there wasn’t enough room to properly install the faucet. We actually had to install it sideways so that the lever would turn all the way. No one would really ever guess unless I pointed out. But now I have…so there’s that.
Our house has a ton of wood in it. It was all very nice, quality stuff so I hated to paint over all of it. We decided that all of the trim (baseboards, crown, door trim) would be painted white, while the windows and doors would remain wood, but we wanted to stain them slightly darker to get rid of that 80’s orangey shade. Eventually, the rest of the house will follow this pattern as well. We sanded and re-stained the two windows in the kitchen, which was QUITE A JOB. But again….THIS MADE SUCH A HUGE DIFFERENCE. Man, I was just amazed by all the change going down in this room.
Next came demo of the old backsplash. In hindsight, this should have been done way before this point and I have no idea why we waited so long. I thought we were done making messes. I was so wrong…
There was no way to get the old tile out without ruining the drywall, so we ended up just cutting the whole thing out. We hired someone to come out and patch up the drywall before the tile people showed up to install the floors and backsplash. I also have to mention that my husband replaced every single outlet and switch in the room with new, white panel switches. How would it have looked to have these old, almond colored switches poking through my beautiful new backsplash?? He also took the opportunity of the drywall being gone to install under-cabinet lighting. At this point, we were leaving for our summer vacation to the beach. The floors and backsplash were installed while we were gone, and there is actually quite a funny story to go along with this.
There had been a small leak under the sink in the laundry room and the tile people weren’t going to install the new floors until that was fixed. I had a tub collecting the water what was the big deal?! Anyway, we asked my dad to run over and switch out the shut-off valve which was the source of the leak. We really didn’t give him much more info than that. He turned off the water at the street, which seemed like would be pretty adequate. But he didn’t think to shut off the valve at the hot water heater…. When he removed the (pressurized) valve under the sink, HOT HOT HOT water came POURING OUT EVERYWHERE. The tilers were actually in the middle of tiling the kitchen floor as this was happening. Everyone was trying to keep the water from coming into the kitchen while trying to figure out how to get the water completely shut off. One of the guys actually had his finger sticking into the burning hot water pipe to try to keep it from coming out!
Where were we during this time, you might ask? Well we were lounging by the ocean of course. Completely oblivious. Until we got back to the condo and saw that we had 576 missed calls. WHOOPS! By this point, obviously, the problem had been solved and Service Master (of NWA) had come to our rescue to dry out the floors. They were at our house in less than an hour from calling them with fans and dehumidifiers and the whole nine yards. We did have to replace the new hardy backer in the laundry room, but I’m sure without their help, it could have been much worse. Now, it’s just a funny story, that I’m sure my father really doesn’t want told. Ha! But it really was our fault for not giving him more instruction on what exactly needed to be done. Every house is different!
Here are some shots of the kitchen as we left for the beach at 4am, and some shots that were sent to us of the progress while we were gone. We chose to do a brick paver tile in the laundry room to give it more of a mud-room feel. I do like it a lot, but that tiny room actually cost more than the entire rest of the flooring (kitchen, hall and bath). I actually just realized as I was writing this post that the stuff was imported! No wonder… I know I said there was nothing I would change but if there WERE it MIGHT be that 😉
We returned from our trip to a whole new space. The only things left at this point were to reinstall the cabinet doors and bring in the island. That’s right…THE ISLAND!!! I have to give you some backstory on this island, because it’s basically the island of my dreams. I designed the island myself based on inspiration I’d seen on Pinterest. I was telling Eric how I wanted it to look and he said, “well why don’t you just draw it out in a notebook like Joanna Gains?” Well DUH. Why didn’t I think of that. Here’s my sketch. Just call me Joanna….go ahead.
The MOST amazing part about this island is that the top was made out of walnut trees that my Uncle Rickey actually cut down by hand back in the 70s. He had held on to this wood for that entire time and gave some to us to have our countertop made out of. My uncle had owned his own hardwood flooring company and wood was his thing. He could turn a floor into a work of art. This part is very hard to write. My uncle passed away suddenly just a few months after our kitchen was complete. So that island is beyond special to me. We can never, ever move. And if we do, that countertop is coming with us. Sorry future homeowners…the island top does not convey.
Here are some pics of the island going in. There are big pot & pan drawers on the side facing the stove, open shelves on the side facing the sink, and a cabinet and drawer on the other side. The whole thing is 4ft x 7ft, with three feet of over-hang for barstool seating. We did not plan to keep a separate dining table in the kitchen anymore. This island was the big show!
One last little tid-bit I have to share before showing off the final product was the change to the four inset upper cabinets on the long wall. We had the center of the doors cut out so that we could replace with glass. But not just any glass…my Aunt Linda happens to be a stained glass artist, and she actually created four custom leaded glass panels for our cabinets. We have a Tudor-style home, so we wanted something that would bring a bit of that traditional Tudor element to the kitchen. AREN’T THEY GORGEOUS?!?! She used seeded glass, so it has a bubbly, vintage effect. These cabinet doors and the island top are the absolute best parts of the entire kitchen. It is so special to have had family involved in this way and it has created such a custom look for the room.
Without further ado, here is the completed look. I’m sorry this post was so ridiculously long, but I wanted to walk you through the entire 8-week process, and it was actually quite fun for me to put this together. I soooo appreciate you sticking with me this long!
Before and Afters…….
It was fun sharing this story with you, and I plan to do more updates on our various renovation projects as we slowly but surely turn our “eye-sore” into our dream home 😉
Products Used:
Kitchen and Bathroom cabinet paint: Sherwin Williams Alabaster
Laundry cabinet paint: Sherwin Williams Warm Stone
Kitchen wall color: Sherwin Williams Amazing Gray
Kitchen and Bath tile: San Guilio Via Grey 12”x 24″
Laundry room brick tile: CIR Old Chicago
Kitchen backsplash: Daltile Structured Effects Crackled Pebble Subway Tile – http://www.homedepot.com/p/Daltile-Structured-Effects-Crackled-Pebble-3-in-x-6-in-Glazed-Ceramic-Wall-Tile-12-sq-ft-case-SE2236MODAHD1P2/206637183
Granite color: Snowfall
My Whole Life 